Here’s What You Need to Know:
Asymptomatic spread is the transmission of the virus by people who do not have symptoms and will never get symptoms from their infection. But those infected carriers could still get others very sick.How Can I Tell If Someone Is Pre-symptomatic Or Asymptomatic?
You can’t. Both types of carriers look and feel normal, though the pre-symptomatic carriers will get symptoms later.Studies suggest pre-symptomatic spread is more common than asymptomatic spread.
“Detailed contact tracing from Taiwan as well as the first European transmission chain in Germany suggested that true asymptomatics rarely transmit,” said Babak Javid, a principal investigator at Tsinghua University School of Medicine in Beijing and an infectious disease consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals.
How Is It Possible To Spread CCP virus Without Symptoms?
“When you speak, sometimes you'll spit a little bit,” said Anne Rimoin, an epidemiology professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health.How Many People Get Infected By Someone Without Symptoms?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 40 percent of CCP virus transmission happens before people feel sick.“These findings explain the rapid geographic spread of (CCP virus) and indicate containment of this virus will be particularly challenging,” researchers wrote.
Many people with CCP virus have no idea they have it—either because they’re asymptomatic, pre-symptomatic, or paucisymptomatic (meaning they have extremely mild symptoms).
The CDC said almost half of the 712 people with CCP virus who were on the Diamond Princess cruise ship didn’t have any symptoms when they tested positive.
How Can So Many People Have Or Spread CCP virus With No Symptoms (Yet)?
This CCP virus has a lengthy incubation period—the time between when someone gets infected to when they start showing symptoms (if they get symptoms at all).The flu can also be spread without symptoms, but the incubation time is much shorter—typically one to four days, with symptoms often showing up within two days after infection, the CDC says.
“We know that a person with COVID-19 may be contagious 48 to 72 hours before starting to experience symptoms,” Harvard experts wrote.