By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News
Coronavirus patients without symptoms rarely spreads the virus to others, World Health Organization officials said at a news conference Monday (at about 31:35 on the YouTube video above).
"From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual," said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO's emerging diseases and zoonosis unit.
Current coronavirus policies are largely based on early evidence that indicated the virus could spread from asymptomatic carriers.
Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published April 1 cited "potential for presymptomatic transmission" as a reason for social distancing, including avoidance of congregate settings as a way to reduce the spread of the virus.
“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.
But if asymptomatic transmission proves to not be an issue, this will have a huge impact on future policies, especially as Kentucky continues to re-open its economy and grapples with how to open its schools in the fall.
State Health Commissioner Steven Stack has said people in public should wear as mask because one-fourth to one-half of people with the virus don't know they have it, and they can spread it even though they lack symptoms.
Stack didn't attend Gov. Andy Beshear's daily coronavirus briefing Monday. Beshear said he had not seen the report, and "That'll be something we have to look at and analyze." He said a cough from an asymptomatic person can spread the virus, and a mask can prevent that.
The governor said he would continue to wear a mask as long as he thinks it can protect someone else "whose body might not be able to handle this disease," not just from the science, but "in part based on faith, being my brother or sister's keeper, or faith that I know it can at least reduce it some."
Van Kerkhove acknowledged that some studies have indicated that the virus can spread via asymptomatic patients, but said again that this is not the main way it is being transmitted.
“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” Van Kerkhove said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”
Van Kerkhove stressed the importance of contact tracing symptomatic patients as the best way to reduce the spread of the disease.
“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.
She also said more research is needed to "truly answer this question" of whether the virus can spread widely through asymptomatic carriers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment