Asymptomatic course of Covid-19 can be lethal

In Moscow, as many as 60% of patients with coronavirus, experience the asymptomatic course of the disease. The number of such patients has increased by 20 percent over one week.

In Moscow, patients are considered COVID-positive after the first test. However, such tests have to be subsequently confirmed at reference centers to confirm the diagnosis.

Previously, the percentage of confirmed positive tests was about 40%, but now this figure amounts to 77%, a message on the website of the Moscow Department of Health says. The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infection has been growing due to the increase in the number of daily tests and the improvement in the quality of diagnostics.

The number of hospitalized patients remains stable, the head of the Moscow Department of Health Alexey Khripun said. It goes about 1,300 people. According to the official, about 4,000 beds were prepared at hospitals last week, while an additional 5,000 beds are to be prepared next week.

The head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova previously estimated the share of asymptomatic carriers of the coronavirus infection in Russia at 45-50% of all infected. Vitaliy Zverev, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a Russian microbiologist, a specialist in the field of molecular biology and pathogenic microorganisms, that 18% of patients in the world will suffer from coronavirus asymptomatically.

Such people can infect other people, even if they do not feel any symptoms of the disease. The infected individual spreads the virus at a distance of a little over a meter. The most important thing is wearing the mask and maintaining social distancing, specialists assure. It is recommended not to approach people and hold one's breath while passing people by.

Frosted glass in the lungs

The danger of the asymptomatic course of the disease also lies in the fact that people with no symptoms of the disease may quickly turn into severely sick patients. They may quickly end up in intensive care, connected to the ventilator. Japanese scientists who studied the results of computer tomography of coronavirus infected passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise liner, who had no symptoms of the disease, found lung damage in COVID-19 survivors known as frosted glass effect. It is only CT that can diagnose this form of deterioration of lungs, when large spots can be seen on the images.

"These are usually foci of infiltration in both lungs. Such gray spots make a typical picture of coronavirus-caused pneumonia," Oleg Bronov, the head of the radiology department of the NMTs named after Pirogov. A patient may feel healthy, but their lung tissue scars very quickly.

Researchers try to better study cases of the asymptomatic course of the disease. Symptoms may still appear, but specialists do not know how exactly.

Vladimir Nikiforov, the chief infectious disease specialist of the Federal Biomedical Agency (FMBA) of Russia noted that the coronavirus does not follow the canons of classical epidemiology. There were incidents, when a person feels normal, although their CT scans suggest that the person should be staying in intensive care.

According to Nikiforov, if the coronavirus was following the classical pattern, the epidemic would end within three months. The world has come across something new. Such a virus could not be created artificially, because mankind does not have enough knowledge to synthesize a virus similar to COVID-19. If such a virus could be synthesized by the hands of man, its creators would be superior in their knowledge to ordinary people.