YES, asymptomatic cases of Covid-19 exist!
I hear and see in comments sections, posts, articles and videos all the time from dubious medical “experts” and the average joe on the internet state the claim of “asymptomatic transmission doesn’t exist, it’s all a lie”, well normally when a claim is made, one has the burden of proof to provide evidence for such claims, when asking an AV or CT for said evidence, they never provide any, so this Medium article today addresses this false claim and I’ll be going into Covid-19 asymptomatic cases, one famous asymptomatic spreader and other viruses which are can also spread asymptomatically.
➡ Definition of asymptomatic
Being asymptomatic means that you have an illness or condition but not showing any symptoms. (Source: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002217.htm)
➡ The story of Typhoid Mary — The asymptomatic spreader
So for some background context, Typhoid fever is caused by a salmonella infection, worldwide this bacterial infection kills 14,000 a year, the mortality is mostly in children which is sad.
In 1907 there was a nasty outbreak of Typhoid in New York, one of the families affected hired a researcher called George Soper to see what was going on, upon further investigation, he discovered the outbreak was from an Irish woman named Mary Mallon, who worked in many of the houses as a cook where people were infected with Typhoid. Whilst Mary objected that she was the cause, Mary was taken to the hospital and tested. At first, she seemed to be completely healthy, the hospital tested her faeces which had high traces of salmonella, she was confined to a hospital bungalow for 3 years to prevent the spread of the infection from going further and released under the condition she no longer worked as a cook anywhere, she was caught again a few years later inside a hospital with guess what? Another outbreak of typhoid. Mary was arrested and kept in a building until her death 23 years later. (Source: Dr Michael Mosley, Covid-19: What you need to know about the Coronavirus and the race for the vaccine 2021, Chapter 1: Portrait of a Serial Killer, p. 17)
➡ Other asymptomatic virus causes
A study from the International Journal of Clinical Research & Trials Volume 2 (2017) looks at asymptomatic infection of Plasmodium, T. gondii, C. burnetii, Cytomegalovirus, Rhinovirus and Zika virus. (Source: https://www.graphyonline.com/archives/IJCRT/2017/IJCRT-118/)
Asymptomatic Carriers Are a Potential Source for Transmission of Epidemic and Nonepidemic Clostridium difficile Strains among Long-Term Care Facility Residents (Source: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/45/8/992/347485)
Heterogeneous and Dynamic Prevalence of Asymptomatic Influenza Virus Infections (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4880086/)
Definition of heterogeneity: https://s4be.cochrane.org/blog/2018/11/29/what-is-heterogeneity/
On top of the studies above, other viruses which can be asymptomatic are as following: HIV, Clostridioides difficile infection, chlamydia, influenza, tuberculosis, herpes and Cholera.
Asymptomatic chlamydia cases account for 70% in women and 50% of men, as most cases are asymptomatic and signs of infection may not show. (Source: JHP Medical UK — https://youtu.be/5wj5UBwxbjs?t=148)
➡ Studies of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19
Asymptomatic carrier state, acute respiratory disease, and pneumonia due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2): Facts and myths (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7128959/)
A study from JAMA states that asymptomatic infection may account for approximately about 24% of all transmission. In the base case within this study, asymptomatic infection accounted for 59% of transmission. (Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774707)
Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection: A systematic review and meta-analysis. These studies included a total of 104,058 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which 25,050 exhibited no symptoms at the time of testing and 7,220 remained asymptomatic. (Source: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/34/e2109229118)
In this study, asymptomatic transmission accounted for half of all transmissions. (Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774707)
A study that looks into the Insight of asymptomatic SARS-COV-2 infection and transmission, this study explains a lot and will answer all of your questions on asymptomatic transmission for SARS-CoV-2. (Source: https://www.ijbs.com/v16p2803.htm)
➡ Conclusion
As we can see from the above there is too much evidence to suggest that asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 and other viruses and bacteria do happen! It’s been documented for decades as researched at the beginning part of the 1900s with Typhoid Mary, the most famous and prolific asymptomatic spreader in history. So conclusively this false internet claim has been fully debunked.
💥 Thanks for reading, Lawrence. Please consider a small contribution, in the form of a beer as all articles are created in my small amount of spare time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LawrenceRob