(11 June) According to the World Health Organization (WHO), on 9 June, it is unclear how likely a person will catch a novel Coronavirus and then transmit it to another person without symptoms.
It is estimated that at least 6 percent — and up to 41 percent — of people infected with the virus have no symptoms, said Maria Van Kerkhoff, technical director of who’s Emergency planning department.
There is no consensus on how many of these people then spread the virus to others.
“This is a big open question,” she told reporters. “The jury is still out.
This is a new disease.
We’re learning a lot about it.”
From the early weeks of the outbreak, health experts suspected that many people who did not feel or appear sick might have inadvertently passed the virus on to others, the report said.
If only people who are clearly ill can spread the virus, it would be easier to control the disease and allow businesses and schools to reopen with greater confidence that simple measures such as thermometers can prevent transmission, the report said.
So-called “silent transmission” makes the disease harder to track and requires people, even healthy ones, to maintain a safe physical distance, making measures such as airport screenings much less effective.
“I am absolutely convinced that this is happening, the question is how much,” Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergency Planning department, said Tuesday.