Can a truly asymptomatic person transmit this infection to others? How
often does that occur and to what extent is that driving the current epidemic? My
name is Isaac Bogoch and I'm an infectious diseases specialist.
Based on a very high-profile study that was recently conducted the report
suggested that the virus was transmitted from someone with no symptoms to other
people. A person that traveled from China to Germany for a meeting. This person
reportedly felt well and then on her return trip back to China, it was
reported that she subsequently developed some signs and symptoms suggestive of an
infection and indeed this person did test positive for the novel coronavirus.
After that people that were close contacts of the traveler from China, who
were still in Germany developed some signs and symptoms of infection in it it
was found that they too were infected with this coronavirus. After the report
came out it seemed to be discovered that people that were involved with the
creation of this report actually never spoke with the individual who came down
with the infection directly. After some deeper digging it turns out that the
individual who flew in from China to Germany indeed had symptoms and it was
reported that she had some muscle aches and pains and wasn't feeling that well
and was even taking some medications to suppress her fevers. With social media in
everybody's palms you know there there always as the potential for the
circulation and of course the amplification of misinformation and
pseudoscience, so I think it's a good idea to pick a few reputable sources and
stick with a few reputable sources. There is certainly is a tremendous need for data
and of course high quality data, and this data can certainly help medical and
scientific teams prepare to treat patients and it also is helpful for
guiding policy and screening programs, treatment programs, prevention programs
vaccinations, and treatment programs. So the data is extremely important. I think
we just need to be mindful that not all data is created the same and of course
there can be some uncertainty with data if mistakes happen that's completely
okay we just have to be able to correct them quickly.
In general and we're dealing with respiratory infections it's usually the
case that people who have symptoms people who are coughing for example are
just more likely to transmit the infection from one person to another. I
also think we have to remember that symptoms can be very broad, some people
can have symptoms and be very very sick. But we're also hearing about people at
the much more mild end of the spectrum with symptoms that they don't even need
to seek medical care because their symptoms are more of a nuisance rather
than requiring hospitalization. One of the concerns is it might be challenging
to control an epidemic if people are walking around with mild symptoms
transmitting the infection because it's hard to find those individuals. It's hard
to identify them and isolate them or prevent them from spreading the
infection to others. With emerging data, we'll see what proportion of individuals
fall into that category