A couple of weeks ago I was informed by Aljoš Mlakar, a friend in Ljubljana, that the Slovenian government was undertaking a nationwide random testing program to establish the true extent of COVID-19 infection rate in the population at large, rather than only concentrating on the apparently symptomatic portion of the population as had been the case. Think of it as a similar exercise to taking a nationwide opinion poll of a random sample of a population rather than merely relying on politically active people to form a model of a society. This exercise was undertaken as an adjunct to the work being done to analyse when the lockdown could be unwound.
Back in February I remember reading that approximately 80% of infected individuals in one Asian country (possibly South Korea but I cannot be certain) were presenting as asymptomatic. These Slovenian provisional numbers would tend to imply a far higher asymptomatic population than as first imagined.
The first thing that I would say is that these numbers must only be taken in the context of the specific Slovenian demographic so it is worthless to attempt to superimpose these numbers on other populations. However the broader context, at least from my own point of view, is that other countries need to be considering a similar random testing regime as the highest priority to nail down the genuine infection rate within a given population. This goes hand-in-hand with easing the lockdown.
On a more ominous note, Slovenia relaxed several aspects of its lockdown from Monday onwards, even as the much higher than expected infection rates are becoming clear. Maybe it would be smart for other countries to observe Slovenia closely over the next couple of weeks before potentially jumping out of lockdown in too precipitate a manner.
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