Asymptomatic Spread of Coronavirus Is ‘Very Rare,’ WHO Says

"Coronavirus 'patients' without symptoms aren’t driving the spread of the virus"

Editor’s note: So it’s not spread by asymptomatics, it’s not spread outdoors, and up to 80% were never susceptible in the first place. “Glad” we made 3 billion healthy people prisoners in their own homes for 3 months over this.


Coronavirus patients without symptoms aren’t driving the spread of the virus, World Health Organization officials said Monday, casting doubt on concerns by some researchers that the disease could be difficult to contain due to asymptomatic infections.

Some people, particularly young and otherwise healthy individuals, who are infected by the coronavirus never develop symptoms or only develop mild symptoms. Others might not develop symptoms until days after they were actually infected.

Preliminary evidence from the earliest outbreaks indicated that the virus could spread from person-to-person contact, even if the carrier didn’t have symptoms. But WHO officials now say that while asymptomatic spread can occur, it is not the main way it’s being transmitted.

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”

Government responses should focus on detecting and isolating infected people with symptoms, and tracking anyone who might have come into contact with them, Van Kerkhove said. She acknowledged that some studies have indicated asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread in nursing homes and in household settings.

More research and data are needed to “truly answer” the question of whether the coronavirus can spread widely through asymptomatic carriers, Van Kerkhove added.

“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”

If asymptomatic spread proves to not be a main driver of coronavirus transmission, the policy implications could be tremendous. A report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on April 1 cited the “potential for presymptomatic transmission” as a reason for the importance of social distancing.

“These findings also suggest that to control the pandemic, it might not be enough for only persons with symptoms to limit their contact with others because persons without symptoms might transmit infection,” the CDC study said.

To be sure, asymptomatic and presymptomatic spread of the virus appears to still be happening, Van Kerkhove said but remains rare. That finding has important implications for how to screen for the virus and limit its spread.

“What we really want to be focused on is following the symptomatic cases,” Van Kerkhove said. “If we actually followed all of the symptomatic cases, isolated those cases, followed the contacts and quarantined those contacts, we would drastically reduce” the outbreak.

Source: CNBC

6 Comments
  1. ke4ram says

    This alleged virus has never been isolated so it probably does not exist except in the minds of the Medical Tyrannical Complex. The WHO and CDC have complete narrative and testing control. They can make the alleged virus disappear and reappear at will by a small change in the test kits.

    1. David Bedford says

      It is a fiction wrapped in a lie inside a rumour. The short answer is its a lie.

      1. sabelmouse says

        i would call it propaganda.

  2. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

    ….And the truth is slowly but surely being revealed…. Too late. Watching the truth about this virus come out now is like watching a drunk driver timidly admit he was drunk after he totaled his car, seriously damaged several other cars, and injured or killed a few pedestrians. Too late.

    1. Ort says

      It’s reprehensible and insidious, and all the worse because even the belated truth of these revelations doesn’t have the force or reach to set us free of the Megadeath Virus of Doom narrative and its draconian New Abnormal consequences.

      Just as an aside, to extend your drunk driver metaphor, it’s entirely possible that the culprit will recant or “clarify” that admission against interest if it’s used against them– possibly claiming that they were drunk when they made the admission of guilt. 😉

      And notice that these would-be damning admissions are nicely folded back into the plandemic narrative. They don’t appear to function as a deterrent to the emerging totalitarian tracking and tracing regime, on the grounds that even apparent “good news” is used as a rationale for requiring more “research and data”, i.e. surveillance.

      Also, my cynical guess is that every revelation that the lockdown, etc. regime was at best a panic-driven overreaction based on spurious “science” will be resisted by the chain of control-freak pissant politicians, public-health officials, and administrators. It’s obvious that they are either so gratified, and/or terrified, by driving the Plandemic New Abnormal Express that their iron boot is keeping the pedal to the metal.

      To switch metaphors, if their “spell” is broken, and it becomes obvious to the beleaguered and bemused public that these tyrants recklessly caused a lot of unnecessary social grief and “collateral damage”, they won’t be heroes any more. They’ve put all their career eggs in the plandemic basket, so they can’t risk the bottom falling out.

      So, they will downplay the cumulative evidence that their COVID tyranny is misguided and destructive. It’s easy to imagine the state Gauleiters and their Ministers of Health hypocritically applauding reports that seem to diminish the severity of the Virus of Doom, while simultaneously remaing in Stern Parent mode: insisting that the public must avoid irrational exhuberance, and, as noted, using the “obviously more research and data is needed” disclaimer to continue to enforce the draconian response because “better safe than sorry”.

      1. Saint Jimmy (Russian American) says

        They’ve got the US public financially shell-shocked and so brainwashed, hypnotized by corporate media and entertainment, and fearful of anything that they can just about tell them anything they want to tell them.

        I think their main problem is they know the financial condition of most Americans is worsening at a rapid rate. They know the system in place – lightly regulated monopolistic globalist capitalism – is not designed to address the root causes of such conditions without significant financial and political sacrifices from the elites. They took quick, short-term actions to save themselves financially and delay the point at which Americans consider their financial conditions and quality of life intolerable. However, they fear conditions intolerable for some critical mass of Americans are fast approaching – 1 year, 2 years? – and they are probably debating what minimal actions must be taken to stave off some kind of revolt and mostly preserve the existing economic and political systems. I’m just guessing, though.

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