As debates over how businesses and schools reopening will be managed safely rages, a group of researchers in South Korea showed on their study, Thursday.
Research confirmed what other experts fear, that people infected with the new coronavirus are carriers of the same levels of pathogens in their lungs, throat, and nose whether they show symptoms of the disease or not
The study that was published in JAMA International Medicine is a significant biological source of data in support of the concept that even people who contracted the virus but do not show symptoms of the disease can spread Covid-19.
Up to now, experts are still relying on deducing asymptomatic spread when people acquire the virus without having contact with a carrier of the disease.
A group of researchers at Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine led by Seungjae Lee have analyzed swabs collected between March 6 and March 26 from 303 people who have been quarantined at a Cheonan center, after the outbreak of the disease among the members of a religious group in another city.
The group of people where the swabs were taken have ages ranging from 22 to 36 and two-thirds of them were women. Of the total swab samples, 193 were taken from individuals showing symptoms of the disease, and 110 were taken from asymptomatic individuals.
Among those who were initially not exhibiting symptoms of the disease, 89 never showed symptoms at all, which is nearly 30 percent of the total.
As reported by the New York Times, the new study offered a more definitive proof that asymptomatic and symptomatic Covid-19 positive patients carry just the same levels of pathogens in their lungs, throat, and nose, and for the almost the same period of time.
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The result of the study itself helped to make sense of what portion of the infected individuals are really asymptomatic rather than simply "presymptomatic", which could cause confusion.
All samples were taken at regular intervals after eight days of being quarantined, and the samples taken yielded corresponding values of the genetic material of the virus from the upper and lower airways.
The study showed that the median time it took for patients not showing symptoms of the disease to return negative test results was marginally lesser than those exhibiting symptoms of the disease: 17 days and 19.5 days, respectively.
Individuals who feel perfectly fine for not showing symptoms of the disease but are still carriers and capable of spreading the virus have become the top concern of those supporting the suspension of fully reopening of schools for face-to-face learning and rushing the resumption of businesses, Yahoo! News reported.
The group researchers who authored the study have written their findings, saying offer biological plausibility to records of asymptomatic transmission.
But the group of the researchers added that their study only included looking at the amount of viral genetic material present in both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases and did not endeavor to follow the subjects of the study to determine if that translated to the transmission of the infectious virus.
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