Covid-19 stats WEDNESDAY 12 Aug and dangers of asymptomatic young people in Spain with Dr Henk Landa
Jan 13, 2025
News of a 20-year-old asymptomatic man infecting his 80-year-old grandma with COVID-19 after catching it at a Madrid party has sparked today’s stats and analysis video.
As Spain recorded 1,690 new COVID-19 cases today, Wednesday 12th August, we are noticing asymptomatic cases making up nearly 50% of the total daily case load.
We spoke with family physician Dr Henk Landa from the Hospital San Carlos in Denia.
He explained how asymptomatic patients can transmit the virus by talking loudly or singing, or otherwise, and that young people should be conscious of potentially carrying the virus without even knowing.
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[Music]
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this is bay radio
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hello a tragic story has been in the
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spanish press this week of a 20 year old
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man who went out partying in madrid
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before not realizing that he'd caught
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covert 19
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and he went on to pass the disease to
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his eight-year-old grandma who is
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currently in a critical condition
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in an intensive care unit in la path
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hospital in the north of madrid
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now this twenty-year-old man was what's
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called asymptomatic meaning that he did
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not present any symptoms of
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of flu fever or indeed coronavirus
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and he was contacted through track and
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trace personnel after a related
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positive infection at the nightclub that
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he had visited this story became
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in the public knowledge after a
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particular doctor at the intensive care
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unit this hospital made a series of
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tweets this week
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effectively blaming the boy for his
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grandma's infection
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as he said it must have come from her
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for she was not going out at all for her
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own fears of catching coronavirus in
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madrid which is currently one of the
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epicenters
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of this so-called second wave that we're
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experiencing in the summer
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i am joshua patrick the digital editor
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for bay radio and today we're going to
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look at the statistics that have just
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come out
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uh this evening from the spanish
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ministry of health and we will also
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speak to
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family physician and long-time serving
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doctor
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henk lander and we're going to be asking
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him how dangerous are asymptomatic
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patients
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let's go today the spanish government
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has announced 1
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690 people tested covert 19 positive
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a day previously this is already a 200
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increase on monday and tuesday's figures
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however the spanish government regularly
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adjusts its figures
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meaning that if we divide the number of
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cases announced over the last week by
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seven
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we actually get a daily average of 3500.
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the 1690 figure announced today also
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lacks data from the autonomous region of
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madrid
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which experienced technical problems
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if we look further down to today's
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report we can see a much bigger graph of
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asymptomatic patients
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these are patients who test covid19
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positive despite showing no symptoms
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such as coughing sneezing sore throats
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and so on
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these cases are beginning to make up
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nearly 50 of new contagions each day as
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we can see in this graph
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the figures also show that around 70 of
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new coronavirus cases in spain's new
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normal
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are all aged under 30 an age group
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much more likely to be asymptomatic
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recent studies such as from the
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university of california
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have suggested that just by talking to
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an asymptomatic person viral
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transmission is possible
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so we called up dr henk lander a family
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physician and doctor for 31 years on the
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costa blanca and currently at deniers
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hospital san carlos
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let's see what he had to say dr lander
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we've seen some quite alarming
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statistics coming out yesterday in
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almeria they
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they announced that 95 of their new
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cases were asymptomatic
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67 in the valencian community said so
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there was some debate in madrid about it
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being as high as 60
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so how dangerous are asymptomatic
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patients
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oh very good question um that debate is
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still waging
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we really don't know how dangerous they
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are uh obviously
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asymptomatic people meaning people that
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have no symptoms that are feeling
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completely healthy
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that will be very surprised if someone
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tells them that look you have the virus
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on board
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these asymptomatic people usually have a
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very
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low load of virus which we call the
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viral load
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so that's very important to keep that in
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mind so someone who's
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really acutely ill usually has a very
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high amount of virus on board so his
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or her viral load will be very high and
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therefore their transmission rates are
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far
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higher so someone who doesn't have
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symptoms
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usually has a low viral load will
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transmit the virus can transmit the
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virus
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if they sneeze for hay fever or if they
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start yelling or
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singing in a very loud voice or start
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yelling at each other in a discotheque
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then little droplets even from healthy
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people can go around and
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they can transmit the virus now we just
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don't know
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the rate of transmission between these
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asymptomatic people
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now this whole phenomena started as we
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started testing
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and also started when we started
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tracking because
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in the in days when this whole pandemic
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started we didn't even have testing so
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we said
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don't bother with testing just self
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quarantine stay at home
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and we had not we didn't have a clue of
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how much of the population actually was
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affected
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we only had guesses so as we're testing
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more people and we're having the
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trackers because in the uh
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the days in the early days of the viral
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uh pandemic we weren't really testing
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now what we're doing is we're trying to
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identify individuals who have the
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illness
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and try to identify all their contacts
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so we start digging into all the
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contacts all the people they've been
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with
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in close contact with in the last days
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so they come up with huge lists of
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people that we start testing
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now and most of them come up
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asymptomatic actually that is
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good news that's meaning that our system
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of detecting is very very powerful
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that we are actually detecting far more
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than we would
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even expect so that's where all the
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asymptomatic people come from so i don't
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think it's something to be afraid of now
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i think it's something to be happy
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about because we are really digging up
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loads and loads of cases
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okay so what we have to know now is how
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the evolution will be
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in weeks to come because as you know if
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i have
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a symptomatic carrier i might develop
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the disease i might not
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my immune system might clear it on its
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own without me even noticing it
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and then that's the end of it okay i
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don't think we should criminalize young
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people
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i don't think they're doing it on
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purpose i see many young people
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protecting themselves
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but let's be honest we all were young
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one day and you can't go on forever
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without having a party
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so these parties are big social events
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and they're reduced level but still
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there's more contact and there's more
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people spreading the virus
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there is no way of stopping that
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completely
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thank you very much for your insights on
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that um just to follow up on that
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question we started this video
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with a new story that's come out this
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week about a 20 year old uh young man in
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madrid who went on to infect his 80 year
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old grandma
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based on what you've been saying though
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would you advise
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young people listening to this or
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parents watching this to
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quarantine their kids as much as they
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can to make sure this doesn't happen or
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is this just a really
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freak tragic occurrence that has
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happened during a pandemic
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well i think you can't just lift one
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case out and then magnify it and say
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this is terrible
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uh obviously there are many uh
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middle-aged people that have infected
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their elderly
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a lot of elders have infected them a lot
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of health
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workers have infected their patients
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so we can't really say who is now the
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cause or who who's to blame
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i think look all of us we have to be
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very careful
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and we have to be as much on our uh
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cuive as we can
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but look being asymptomatic you just
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don't know if you've
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acquired the virus so how are we going
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to blame someone who has no symptoms and
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is going to pass it on
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all right so that's number one that's
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something i would like to point out
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number two is that we all have to work
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very hard
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to to be conscious so also young people
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have to be conscious that they can
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acquire the virus they can be a carrier
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and they can't pass it on i think the
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vast majority
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of young people is conscious about that
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and what i'm noticing with my children
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they're
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like in this age group they're like 20
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20 years old 26 27
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they're very conscious that when they go
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out they only go out with
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their same group of friends they try to
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narrow it down they don't go to big
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large events
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they're hardly any big large events
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anyway so they are very conscious
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and i think most of young people are
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doing that thank you very
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much that was dr henk lander from the
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san carlos hospital in denia
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and there we have an overview of
8:05
asymptomatic kovid 19 patients and what
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it means for spain
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as we battle this recent spike in
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infections over the summer
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i am joshua parfit the digital editor
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for bay radio and as ever please
8:17
subscribe to our youtube channel through
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8:35
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