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  • 2020-12-31 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Scientists Conclude Asymptomatic COVID Patients Can't Spread Virus? (en)
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  • At the end of 2020, critics of government-imposed lockdowns on U.S. businesses and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 circulated posts alleging a new study found people who tested positive for the virus but did not show symptoms were not contagious. The posts framed the alleged research as evidence that rules on social distancing in public spaces, such as restaurants and schools, were unnecessary given the assumption that symptomatic COVID-19 patients would stay home to rest, regardless of lockdown measures. Around the same time, a website, LifeSiteNews, published the following headline supposedly reporting similar findings of a separate study out of Wuhan, China: Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 didn't occur at all, study of 10 million finds. Numerous Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the validity of the purported research and to determine whether scientists indeed concluded asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 patients did not transmit the virus to others. Firstly, we will summarize the scope and objectives of both research projects. Researchers with doctorate degrees in biostatistics from the University of Florida, University of Washington, and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center authored the Dec. 14 analysis to which conservative commentator Tomi Lahren refers in the above-displayed tweet criticizing lockdown restrictions. Rather than conducting physical experiments or observing themselves, the scientists compiled 54 already-existing studies, including more than 78,000 people for their conclusions. But here's a widely misrepresented element of the research: The studies to which the scientists referred did not look at how the virus spreads from person to person in public settings. Rather, the research interrogated how, or to what severity, members of the same household pass the virus to each other. The report obtained by Snopes via the American Medical Association's JAMA Network read: In other words, it was a false characterization of the report, no mater its findings, to frame it as proof of how the virus spreads in any setting other than homes. That mischaracterization aside, however, the claim that no asymptomatic or presymptomatic patient passed the virus on, or that the research proved that only symptomatic COVID-19 patients perpetuated the pandemic, were the most egregious errors in the claim casting doubt on lockdowns. By analyzing the dozens of studies, the scientists concluded symptomatic patients carried the highest risk of spreading the virus to other people, yet a small number of people appeared to have caught the virus from patients without symptoms. The report read: The finding's emphasis on the lack of data on the particular matter (comparing symptomatic transmission spread with the rate of other patients) matched a Nov. 18 analysis by scientist journalist Bianca Nogrady in Nature Communications. It said: Nonetheless, public health officials urged all people to wear masks and practice social distancing until scientists learn more about how respiratory droplets containing the virus spread among all types of infected people. The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses on its website that all infected people — regardless of whether they show symptoms — can spread COVID-19. While someone who never develops symptoms can pass the virus to others, it is still not clear how frequently this occurs and more research is needed in this area, WHO stated at the time of this report. (en)
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