The World Health Organization says there's now evidence that people without symptoms are not driving the spread of coronavirus. While asymptomatic people CAN spread it, the main way it's being spread is by infected people with symptoms.
“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, said at a news briefing from the United Nations agency’s Geneva headquarters. “It’s very rare.”
More research and data are needed to “truly answer” the question of whether the coronavirus can spread widely through asymptomatic carriers, Van Kerkhove added.
“We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing,” she said. “They’re following asymptomatic cases. They’re following contacts. And they’re not finding secondary transmission onward. It’s very rare.”
Of course, if more research and data proves this is true, the implications are HUGE for re-opening and resuming day-to-day activities.
The WHO also had a more sobering finding, though: The number of new coronavirus cases worldwide hit a new high on Sunday, with 136,000. As places continue to re-open, they warned, quote, "The biggest threat now is complacency."