To address these limitations, the team systematically conducted two separate meta-analyses of existing COVID-19 studies that reported on laboratory-confirmed infections.
The first was limited to studies that included a substantial follow-up period to clear those who experienced some kind of effect from the virus later. The results of this particular analysis suggest 35.1 percent of people who might receive a positive laboratory result won’t personally suffer any consequences of their infection.
The second included studies that both distinguished silent infections at the time of testing as well as conducting a follow-up analysis. The number here was 36.9 percent.
The figures are close enough to convince the researchers that their method has merit, reinforcing speculations that many of our best guesses have been too low. Even taking into account index cases that could be biasing calculations, their figures are at least one in every four cases being silent ones.
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