The SARS-CoV-2 transmission riddle - Part 4

Poor methods lead to waste, misleading research and failure to address uncertainties.

Asymptomatics were the invisible spreaders, requiring mass testing to identify and isolate them because they had no outward sign of infection.

Test, test, test was the message, and we will catch the unseen spreaders, quarantine them and contain the pandemic: only ‘two weeks to flatten the curve.’   

Several authors outdid each other in providing point estimates of the prevalence, leading those in charge to claim asymptomatics had a significant role in driving the pandemic. 

“Senior people did not understand, well enough, the problem of asymptomatic transmission," said Dominic Cummings. In evidence to the Science and Health Joint Committee, Matt Hancock, said ‘he “bitterly” regrets not overruling the scientific advice at the start and proceeding on the basis that there is asymptomatic transmission until we know there is not.’

On 28 January 2020, the UK Government’s advisors SAGE minutes reported, ‘there is limited evidence of asymptomatic transmission,’ and ‘ it would not be useful to test…