Letters | Hong Kong third wave: how much of a risk do asymptomatic cases pose?
Let us look at an extreme case. If three asymptomatic carriers infected three other people 13 days ago, those nine infected three more people 12 days ago and so on, then by now a large section of the population of Hong Kong would be infected.
Obviously, this case is too extreme since it assumes the carriers meet at least three new people without symptoms every day. Nevertheless, it shows that, even if not so many people were infected, by now there would still be a huge number of people with the virus. As this is not the case, and the pandemic has been going on for much longer than three weeks, I return to my first question above. How likely is it that an asymptomatic carrier will infect somebody else?
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The fear of catching the virus from somebody who does not know they have it has been a major factor in justifying draconian measures enforced on the general population.