It seems one quite interesting case in recent times has been found regarding the coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak. A roughly 20-year-old woman from Wuhan who never got physically ill herself transmitted the disease unknowingly to at least five other people.
This case of asymptomatic transmission is mind-blowing and brings much more severity to the whole situation itself. We’ve seen person to person transmission and were even aware of an up to 19 day incubation period but now that this case without symptom entirely has been found it raises a lot of questions. How many more people are there out there like this?
researchers wrote the following on the patient in their official findings:
Patient 1 (presumed asymptomatic carrier), a 20-year-old woman, lives in Wuhan and traveled to Anyang on January 10, 2020. She initially met with patients 2 and 3 on January 10. On January 13, she accompanied 5 relatives (patients 2 through 6) to visit another hospitalized relative in Anyang District Hospital (Figure). There was no report of COVID-19 at this hospital. After the development of disease in her relatives, patient 1 was isolated and observed. As of February 11, she had no elevated temperature measured or self-reported fever and no gastrointestinal or respiratory symptoms, including cough and sore throat, reported or observed by the physicians. Chest CT images on January 27 and 31 showed no significant abnormalities. Her C-reactive protein level and lymphocyte count were normal (Table). Results of RT-PCR testing were negative on January 26, positive on January 28, and negative on February 5 and 8.
Patients 2 through 6 developed COVID-19. Four were women, and ages ranged from 42 to 57 years. None of the patients had visited Wuhan or been in contact with any other people who had traveled to Wuhan (except patient 1).
Patients 2 through 5 developed a fever and respiratory symptoms between January 23 and January 26 and were admitted to the hospital on the same day. All patients had RT-PCR test results positive for COVID-19 within 1 day. Patient 6 developed a fever and sore throat on January 17 and went to the local clinic for treatment. There was no report of COVID-19 at the clinic. Her symptoms improved over the next few days but worsened on January 24, when she was admitted to the hospital and confirmed to have COVID-19 on January 26. Two patients developed severe pneumonia; the other infections were moderate.
All symptomatic patients had multifocal ground-glass opacities on chest CT, and 1 also had subsegmental areas of consolidation and fibrosis. All the symptomatic patients had increased C-reactive protein levels and reduced lymphocyte counts.
It seems actually these asymptomatic cases are not as rare as you’d think. Apparently, out of the just over 600 cases in the Diamond Princess cruise ship at least 322 of them were asymptomatic meaning they tested positive but showed no symptoms of the sickness itself. Around 1.2 percent of patients who are confirmed as infected do not show symptoms which might not seem like a lot but in regards to the transmission can make a huge difference especially for those who never bother to get checked out.
For more information please check out the video below. With the number of people affected by this virus rising, we all need to know as much as we can about it.