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Even after it's over we'll probably never know how many people got infected and were never tested nor showed any symptoms.


That's what serological tests are for.


Anyhow, in this case it should not count as a SARS-CoV-2 fatality, so this doesn't affect the fatality rate.


An asymptomatic infection should still count as an infection, so it should lower the infection fatality rate. I don't have expertise in this area, but I think both infected fatality rate and symptomatic fatality rate are useful.


For the study, they tested a representative sample that includes asymptomatic cases. Hence, one can assume a known, constant number of infected cases. And to complete the study they should, as far as I understand it, wait until they know how many of those infected die in order to calculate the fatality rate. I don’t think it’s relevant here if further people are infected after testing for the illness, and there shouldn’t be a need to monitor the new cases or even check if they die (it shouldn’t be necessary for the study).




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