Photo: Getty Images/iStockphoto In early April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new face-mask guidance, encouraging everyone to wear cloth face coverings when in public. The reasoning: “We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms” and that those individuals can transmit the virus to others.
The WHO’s comments led to a flurry of news items — and some pushback from concerned health experts. In an attempt to clear up confusion, the WHO held another press conference Tuesday morning, at which Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, clarified that her statement was based on a small number of contact-tracing studies done in China.
How many people with the coronavirus are asymptomatic? Estimates vary pretty widely. Some studies are reporting alarmingly high numbers: In early April, one lab in Iceland reported that as many as 50 percent of cases could be asymptomatic; in the same month, India’s top medical research body reported that out of 100 infected people they studied, 80 did not have symptoms.
Is it possible that some people who were asymptomatic when they were tested later showed symptoms? Absolutely. Van Kerkhove has told ProPublica she thinks that many cases have been misclassified as asymptomatic when in fact they were presymptomatic. Part of the persisting confusion here stems from the fact that some people who do have mild symptoms might not fully register that they have symptoms, Van Kerkhove said at the Tuesday press conference.
Completely irresponsible headline and caption. You realize most people are now only reading headlines on social? This is going to kill people.
The WHO has walked back on that previous statement as it's based on 'very few studies'.
The combo of your tweet and headline is very confusing.
Read the article. They supply literally no evidence to this theory.
The WHO shouldbe cancelled