WHO Says Covid-19 Asymptomatic Transmission Is "Very Rare"

COVID-19 technical lead of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, informs that studies are not finding COVID-19 to be transmissible by asymptomatic individuals.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQTBlbx1Xjs

Quotes

We do know that there can be people that are truly asymptomatic and PCR-positive.

– at 1m10s

What proportion of asymptomatic individuals actually transmit?

– at 1m16s

We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts, and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's *very rare*.

– at 1m34s

From the papers that are published there's one that came out from Singapore looking at a long-term care facility, there are some household-transmission studies where you follow individuals over time and you look at the proportion of those that transmit onwards.

– at 1m50s

It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward.

– at 2m10s

From the data we have it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.

– at 2m54s