First, about 20% of people who are infected likely never develop any symptoms. They are truly asymptomatic. Some variation in estimates on this. Lots of data points but here's a preprint https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.10.20097543v1.full.pdf … 2/5
-
-
Show this thread
-
So what about the other 80% of people who do have symptoms? Many of them are shedding virus BEFORE they develop symptoms https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0869-5 … Technically, these folks are PRE-symptomatic, not asymptomatic But they are asymptomatic at the time they are shedding virus 3/5
Show this thread -
Some modeling studies suggest 40-60% of spread is from people when they didn’t have symptoms. Here are a few refs: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-3012 … https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.25.20079103v2 … 4/6
Show this thread -
So – it might be
@WHO is drawing a distinction between asymptomatic spread and pre-symptomatic spread. And it may be there isn't a lot of asymptomatic spread but plenty of pre-symptomatic spread. Would be helpful to get the full report that they are referencing. 5/6Show this thread -
Both asymptomatic AND pre-symptomatic spread huge problem for controlling disease Because folks shedding virus while asymptomatic Pre-symptomatic has one advantage: you can use contact tracing to find folks they infected But that doesn’t help prevent presymptomatic spread 6/7
Show this thread -
More on
@WHO comment by@mvankerkhove As I read her follow-on tweets, best guess is she really is differentiating asymptomatic vs pre-symptomatic Two key points: 1. People without symptoms definitely spread disease (so wear a mask) 2.@WHO should be clearer in communicationShow this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
-
-
Thank you! Perhaps WHO can clarify quickly or else risk more people relaxing social distancing and face masks. If wrong could be a real set back to progress.
- Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.