Viral loads
I find various theories, assumptions and misinformation flying around regarding Covid here.
What matters is the "Infectious dose" - or how many viral particles needed to start the infection. This can be as low as 8 or as high as 1000 depending on the type of virus.
I haven't seen an exact figure for the "infectious dose" for Covid-19 yet.
OTOH the viral load is the amount of viral genomes that a sample taken from the patient has.
There were recent reports in the Lancet that persons who were severely sick had high viral loads on admission and during the first few days in the hospital and also people with similar viral loads on admission went on to develop both mild and severe disease.
Also the Chinese reported earlier that both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients had similar viral loads. But note that their sample sizes were less than 50.
So even after 5 months the scientists do not have conclusive evidence. So please be careful when making assumptions.
I find various theories, assumptions and misinformation flying around regarding Covid here.
What matters is the "Infectious dose" - or how many viral particles needed to start the infection. This can be as low as 8 or as high as 1000 depending on the type of virus.
I haven't seen an exact figure for the "infectious dose" for Covid-19 yet.
OTOH the viral load is the amount of viral genomes that a sample taken from the patient has.
There were recent reports in the Lancet that persons who were severely sick had high viral loads on admission and during the first few days in the hospital and also people with similar viral loads on admission went on to develop both mild and severe disease.
Also the Chinese reported earlier that both symptomatic and asymptomatic patients had similar viral loads. But note that their sample sizes were less than 50.
So even after 5 months the scientists do not have conclusive evidence. So please be careful when making assumptions.
