And WHO brings AI on board to tackle the COVID-19 infodemic.
Welcome to The Medical Republic’s COVID Catch-Up.
It’s the day’s COVID-19 news in one convenient post. Email bianca@biancanogrady.com with any tips, comments or feedback.
9 February
- Half of travellers who test positive to SARS-CoV-2 entering China are asymptomatic.
- WHO pilots AI-based social media monitor to combat COVID-19 misinformation.
- Electricity demand plummets during COVID-19, along with CO2 emissions.
- Former senator falls foul of TGA for spruiking ivermectin.
- Latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia.
Around half of people who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 when entering China have been asymptomatic, according to a paper published in JAMA.
From the start of April 2020, anyone entering China had to undergo RT-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 at the border, and all were then isolated in quarantine facilities for two weeks, with repeat testing on day 13 after arrival.
Overall, 19.3 million travellers were tested between April and October 2020, and just over 3100 were positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of these, 43.6% were symptomatic at the time of first testing, 4.4% developed symptoms during their quarantine, but 51.9% never developed symptoms during their isolation period, and were considered truly asymptomatic.
The study did note an increase in asymptomatic presentations over the course of the seven-month study, from around 27% of cases to nearly 60% of cases.
WHO has EARS. It’s not a question, but rather a statement – the World Health Organization has launched a 20-country pilot of its Early AI-supported Response with Social Listening tool (or EARS), which is intended to help track the COVID-19 infodemic.
The natural language processing tool mines social media conversations for keywords and hashtags relating to the pandemic, then analyses the content of those conversations to identify features such as questions, complaints, and demographic features of those involved in the conversations.
The idea is to give health authorities an impression of what people are talking about and where there might be opportunities to provide information or correct misinformation. The system can focus on topics such as vaccines, the virus’s origins, transmission of disease, treatments and the impact of COVID-19.
Since 15 December 2020, EARS has analysed nearly 9.9 million posts within the 20 pilot countries.
Electricity demand across Europe, the US and India was up to 20% lower during 2020 compared to 2019, while monthly CO2 emissions from power generation decreased by up to 50%, according to a paper in Nature Climate Change.
“The power sector has a crucial role to play in the decarbonization of the entire energy system and was already in the midst of a dynamic transformation process before COVID-19,” the authors wrote, suggesting that this ongoing decline in fossil fuel-powered energy could mean the power sector’s CO2 emissions will not return to their 2018 levels.
We can only hope.
Former Australian senator David Leyonhjelm has attracted the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s attention for spruiking and making false claims about ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.
Leyonhjelm touted the antiparasitic in a Twitter post, which he has now been instructed to take down.
Here are the latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia to 9pm Monday:
National – 28,857 with 909 deaths
ACT – 118 (0)
NSW – 5123 (3)
NT – 102 (0)
QLD – 1314 (2)
SA – 603 (1)
TAS – 234 (0)
VIC – 20,456 (1)
WA – 907 (0)
