Infected with the coronavirus but not showing symptoms? A physician answers questions
Infected with the coronavirus but not showing symptoms? A physician answers 5 questions about asymptomatic COVID-19
The Conversation April 30, 2020 8.13am EDT
William Petri is a professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Virginia who specializes in infectious diseases. Here, he runs through what’s known and what isn’t about asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.
How common is it for people to contract and fight off viruses without knowing it?
In general, having an infection without any symptoms is common...My colleagues and I have found that many infections are fought off by the body without the person even knowing it. For example, when we carefully followed children for infection by the parasite Cryptosporidia, one of the major causes of diarrhea, almost half of those with infections showed no symptoms at all. In the case of the flu, estimates are that anywhere from 5% to 25% of infections occur with no symptoms.
What’s known about how contagious an asymptomatic person might be?
No matter what, if you’ve been exposed to someone with COVID-19, you should self-quarantine for the entire 14-day incubation period. Even if you feel fine, you’re still at risk of spreading the coronavirus to others.
Most recently it has been shown that high levels of the virus are present in respiratory secretions during the “presymptomatic” period that can last days to more than a week prior to the fever and cough characteristic of COVID-19. This ability of the virus to be transmitted by people without symptoms is a major reason for the pandemic.
The other three questions can be found in the article here
https://theconversation.com/infected-with-the-coronavirus-but-not-showing-symptoms-a-physician-answers-5-questions-about-asymptomatic-covid-19-137029
= new reply since forum marked as read
