“All of the best evidence suggests that people without symptoms can and do readily spread SARS-CoV2,” a group of Harvard scientists said.
Science magazine update
to its original story about the incident noted that, “this story has been cited widely on social media to argue against the use of face masks and shelter-in-place policies. This is based on a misreading of the article.” Adding to the confusion, patients who had less common symptoms of the virus — such as fatigue, aches, and diarrhea — sometimes don’t recognize they were infected, because they didn't have the coughs and fevers usually associated with respiratory diseases, infectious disease expert Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security told BuzzFeed News. This adds to uncertainty in retrospective studies where patients are asked to self-report their past illness status.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said the statements from Monday were in the context of encouraging strong contact tracing to control outbreaks in low-income countries, rather than turning to wide-scale lockdowns, which carry vast health and economic costs of their own. “We know the suspect cases with symptoms,” said Ryan.
“The problem is that their asymptomatic comments don’t help us in any way from a public health standpoint, they just add to the confusion,” said Gostin. It’s inevitable that some miscommunication will occur during daily press conferences, he added. “That just means you have to be extra careful to not lose your scientific credibility, or else everything else you recommend falls down like a house of cards.
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