Less than six months after it declared that asymptomatic COVID-19 patients could infect others, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has made a complete detour declaring that its recent study shows that it is rare that “an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.”
An asymptomatic coronavirus patients are those who test positive for the virus but who do not show any sign (symptoms) of infection.
On the percentage of COVID-19 patients that are asymptomatic, WHO data to date suggest that 80 per cent of infections are mild or asymptomatic, 15 per cent are severe infections, requiring oxygen and five per cent are critical infections, requiring ventilation.
They neither needed to be isolated nor quarantined or social distanced, who suggested in a new study.
Making this u-turn in a press release on Wednesday, August 12, 2920, the WHO Technical Lead on COVID-19, Dr. Maria Kerkhove, said, “It seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.”
What Kerkhove’s statement means in effect is that asymptomatic coronavirus patients cannot even transmit coronavirus to another person.
This new position contradicts the earlier position of the WHO, which claimed that an asymptomatic coronavirus patient could transmit the virus and consequently infect others.
An asymptomatic laboratory- confirmed case is a person infected with COVID- 19 who does not develop symptoms.
Asymptomatic transmission refers to transmission of the virus from a person, who does not develop symptoms.
