Asymptomatic people can spread coronavirus for more than a week, study says

[Chris Smith]

• People who aren’t showing symptoms of coronavirus but have been infected are still contagious, a new study from China says.
• Asymptomatic people experience a much milder version of COVID-19 that could cause subtle effects on the body.
• The study included patients from the original coronavirus epicenter in Wuhan and concluded asymptomatic patients are infectious for an average of eight days.

Combine a long incubation period with an absence of distinct signs, and you end up with a pathogen that can spread with ease and infect plenty of people without alerting them to its presence. That’s why the novel coronavirus is so dangerous. Left unchecked, the virus moves from person to person faster than we could have imagined several months ago. A definitive COVID-19 diagnosis can’t be established without testing because of the lack of specific signs. The coronavirus causes symptoms shared with other pathologies, and the unique COVID-19 signs do not appear in all infected people.

And herein lies another big problem: Many people are asymptomatic, but they’re still contagious. A brand new study from China says that carriers without symptoms can be contagious anywhere from three to 12 days, for an average of around eight days. That’s why social distancing measures are so important even after opening up the economy, combined with proper access to testing, the use of face masks, and increased handwashing.

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Asymptomatic people can spread coronavirus for more than a week, study says originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 3 Jun 2020 at 18:02:35 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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