Now, new evidence suggests that\u00a0just 17% of those infected with COVID-19 will experience no symptoms<\/strong>, according to\u00a0Nature<\/em><\/a>, citing a\u00a0meta-analysis of 13 studies<\/a>\u00a0published last month which involved 21,708 people. What’s more,\u00a0asymptomatic individuals are\u00a042% less likely\u00a0<\/u>to transmit the virus\u00a0<\/strong>than those with symptoms.<\/p>\n The research, spearheaded by lead author Oyungerel Byambasuren of the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Bond University in Gold Coast, Australia, defined asymptomatic people as\u00a0those who showed none of the key COVID-19 sysmptoms during the entire follow-up period<\/strong>. The authors only included studies which followed participants for at least seven days, as evidence suggests symptoms typically develop in 7-13 days (during which people are still contagious).<\/p>\n One reason that scientists want to know how frequently people without symptoms transmit the virus is because these infections largely go undetected. Testing in most countries is targeted at those with symptoms.<\/p>\n As part of a large population study in Geneva, Switzerland,\u00a0researchers modelled viral spread among people living together<\/strong>. In a manuscript posted on medRxiv this month2<\/a><\/sup>, they report that\u00a0the risk of an asymptomatic person passing the virus to others in their home is about one-quarter of the risk of transmission from a symptomatic person<\/strong>. –Nature<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n That said, the analysis acknowledges that while there is a lower risk of transmission among asymptomatics, they may still present a public health risk due to the fact that they are more likely to be out in the community vs. isolating at home, according to Switzerland-based infectious-disease specialist Andrew Azman of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a co-author on the study.<\/p>\n “The actual public-health burden of this massive pool of interacting \u2018asymptomatics\u2019 in the community probably\u00a0suggests that a sizeable portion of transmission events are from asymptomatic transmissions<\/strong>,” he said.<\/p>\n Nature<\/em>\u00a0notes that other researchers\u00a0disagree over the extent to which asymptomatic spread contributes to community transmission<\/strong>. ” Byambasuren, the lead author, says that if the studies are correct that asymptomatic people are a low transmission risk, “these people are not the secret drivers of this pandemic,<\/strong>” as they are “not coughing or sneezing as much” and\u00a0are “probably not contaminating as much surfaces as other people.”<\/strong><\/p>\n So, while the ‘silent spread’ factor appears to be far less pronounced than previously thought, and the virus kills\u00a0less than 1%<\/a>\u00a0of those infected under the age of 60, one still has approximately a 10% chance of becoming a “long hauler<\/a>” – an infected person who essentially suffers from waves of flu symptoms for months on end. Is that worth shutting down the economy over?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_desktop\/public\/inline-images\/coronas_0_1.jpg?itok=Vq95zRn2)
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