iBonus Limited Delivers Formula to Measure Asymptomatic Growth of COVID-19 Opening Potential Routes to Control It

Experts broadly agree, one of the biggest reasons why the Coronavirus is so easy to spread in the community is that infected persons have an incubation period of about 14-days, and there are often no obvious surface symptoms. Many people do not know if they have been in contact with those infected and this situation can quickly escalate out of control.

Hong Kong health-focused tech company iBonus Limited believe the most effective way to tackle this problem is to use the anonymous smartphone app (or public transit card) and also to install dedicated terminals in public places such as a library, cinema, school, and gym to record where and when the people have visited. When a person is reported as virus-infected by medical authorities, the system immediately puts all persons who appear in the same place at the same time as the confirmed patient in the past 14 days into an Alert list and transmits it to all terminals. This system gives a friendly alert to potential incubators when they are entering public areas.

The mathematical formula of Asymptomatic growth which the team at iBonus Limited presents to consider is: Asymptomatic Growth = (1-Participation%) x Gathering Size x Infection Rate %.

According to the company, Asymptomatic Growth is the growth ratio of the number of infected people today over the previous day. The team believes that this method of tracking coronavirus, Asymptomatic growth, is a better index than infected growth to measure the spread of COVID-19. Asymptomatic growth takes into consideration the daily activities and behavior of the infected people in the community.

iBonus Limited suggests a consistent Asymptomatic Growth of less than 1, indicates that COVID-19 spread is under control and the daily economic activities can be resumed.

Kieth Lau from iBonus Limited commented, “We use some figures here for ease of illustration. Assuming the average infection rate is 2% and the average size of people gathered in the public areas is 300 people, and each infected person will visit one public area on the next level in 14 days. Block % is defined as the percentage of infected people who will be blocked by our terminals. Block % is technically the same as public participation %. It depends on various parameters: the number of terminals installed, the installed locations, and the discipline of the users.

no. of users in the current Alert List, Alert (0) = infected(0) x (1-Block%) x Gathering size

no. of users in the previous Alert List, Alert List (-1) = infected(0) / infection rate%

Growth of Asymptomatic

Alert (0) / Alert (-1) = (1-Block%) x Gathering size x infection rate %

“The overall Alert list growth can be reduced by increasing public participation such as installing more terminals,” continued Lau. “In addition, we can isolate the individual public places with high Alert list growth and then manage the 3 elements of the formula: Users’ discipline; Gathering size: partition area with a separated terminal; and the Infection rate: changing the way people behave.

iBonus Limited concluded by suggesting this could be the first an index related to the virus is defined, Asymptomatic Growth, that is more likely to accurately indicate if COVID19 community spreading is under control and if economic activities can be resumed. Most importantly, this can be backed up by a system that provides an executable mechanism which can in theory improve the index to a level below 1, a safety level to conduct normal economic activities.

For more information be sure to visit https://covid2019system.com.

About iBonus Limited

iBonus Limited are a Hong Kong-based company offering a quick and simple to use Mobile Wallet for Automated Fare Collection.