WHO: Asymptomatic Covid-19 Carriers Spreading Virus Is ‘Very Rare’

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In a bit of news that is a departure from what we have been hearing for months, a high-level official at the WHO has said that asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus are not the primary spreaders of it, according to their research.

“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 at the WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, per CNBC. “It’s very rare.”



The CNBC story did say that Van Kerkhove acknowledged there has been some evidence that asymptomatic carriers have spread the virus within nursing homes and households. Nonetheless, she called that “rare” and advocated for contact tracing of symptomatic carriers: “What we really want to be focused on is following the symptomatic cases,” Van Kerkhove said. “If we actually followed all of the symptomatic cases, isolated those cases, followed the contacts and quarantined those contacts, we would drastically reduce [the outbreak]”.

Van Kerkhove called for more research and data to “truly” confirm the rarity of asymptomatic spread.

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Well, I guess we all know how much you can depend on the WHO for accurate information, but who knows? This might be accurate.

I find it hard to believe much of what they say, seems it’s very fluid. What about hydroxy chloroquinine? Does it help? What is China saying today?

June 9, 2020 – ‘We don’t actually have that answer yet’: WHO clarifies comments on asymptomatic spread of Covid-19

Van Kerkhove acknowledged Tuesday that her use of the phrase “very rare” had been a miscommunication. She said she had based that phrasing on findings from a small number of studies that followed asymptomatic cases and tracked how many of their contacts became infected. She said she did not mean to imply that “asymptomatic transmission globally” was happening rarely, because that has not been determined yet.

What’s rare about symptomatic transmission is any data about it. People who aren’t symptomatic generally haven’t been tracked. Most people don’t seek medical attention for infections that they’re never aware they have.

July 7, 2020 – Trump has officially begun to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization as pandemic spikes

The World Health Organization is one of the best advance warning systems for emerging contagious disease threats around the world—like the one that the United States has failed to control, owing in large part to his own appalling incompetence. The United States leads the world in COVID-19 deaths. How do we account for that?

The formal withdrawal comes as the United States nears 3 million reported coronavirus cases and more than 130,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Globally, there have been 11.6 million cases and almost 540,000 deaths.

Trump and his advisers have blasted the WHO for failing to press China to be more transparent about the scope and severity of the COVID-19 outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China.

It’s all about pre-election blame-shifting. He has blamed China; he has blamed WHO; he has blamed Obama: he has also disparaged our own CDC and his administration’s own experts—all while being utterly clueless himself:

March 25, 2020 – U.S. slashed CDC staff inside China prior to coronavirus outbreak

WASHINGTON(Reuters) – The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned.

Most of the reductions were made at the Beijing office of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and occurred over the past two years, according to public CDC documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with four people familiar with the drawdown.

The Atlanta-based CDC, America’s preeminent disease fighting agency, provides public health assistance to nations around the world and works with them to help stop outbreaks of contagious diseases from spreading globally. It has worked in China for 30 years.

The CDC’s China headcount has shrunk to around 14 staffers, down from approximately 47 people since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the documents show. The four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the losses included epidemiologists and other health professionals.

The material reviewed by Reuters shows a breakdown of how many American and local Chinese employees were assigned there. The documents are the CDC’s own descriptions of its headcount, which it posts online. Reuters was able to search past copies of the material to confirm the decline described by the four people.

“The CDC office in Beijing is a shell of its former self,” said one of the people, a U.S. official who worked in China at the time of the drawdown.

Trump has got to go. He can’t be allowed to have a second term. It’s going to take years to undo the damage he has done already.

@Greg: Until and unless the WHO reorganizes itself to remove political influence, we have no business paying any attention to them. Like the UN, they have become useless to free people.

@Greg:

Trump has got to go. He can’t be allowed to have a second term. It’s going to take years to undo the damage he has done already.

Damage to commies? Yes he set the timeline to deconstruct the constitution and turn the USA into a slave nation of China by years.

July 8, 2020 – Trump’s Tulsa rally, protests ‘likely’ contributed to a surge in coronavirus cases, local health official says

President Donald Trump’s first large campaign event since the beginning of the coronavirus lockdowns, along with protests at the time, were “likely” a contributing factor in a recent surge of cases in Tulsa, Oklahoma, according to a local top health official.

Tulsa Health Department Executive Director Bruce Dart said at a news conference Wednesday that it was “more than likely” the large gatherings in the last few weeks added to a record number of cases reported this week.

The county saw a record 261 new cases of the virus Monday – just over two weeks after Trump’s rally – with an additional 206 on Tuesday, according to the Tulsa Health Department. The incubation period for the coronavirus is thought by experts to be between two and 14 days.

“The past few days we’ve had almost 500 cases, and we know we had several large events a little over two weeks ago, which is about right, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Dart said, citing Trump’s rally and “other protests.”

The rally, held at Tulsa’s BOK Center on June 20, drew some 6,200 Trump attendees and was met with hundreds of protesters. The rally also occurred as cities across the nation, including Tulsa, were the sites of massive marches against racism and police brutality. Also in Tulsa at the time was an outdoor Juneteenth celebration at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa.

Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the Trump campaign, said in a statement that the news media was disproportionately focused on Trump’s events in the spread of the virus.

“There were no health precautions to speak of as thousands looted, rioted, and protested in the streets and the media reported that it did not lead to a rise in coronavirus cases,” Murtaugh said. “Meanwhile, the President’s rally was 18 days ago, all attendees had their temperature checked, everyone was provided a mask, and there was plenty of hand sanitizer available for all. It’s obvious that the media’s concern about large gatherings begins and ends with Trump rallies.”

Actually, I don’t recall anyone in the media claiming that protest crowds were not a COVID-19 risk. All crowded settings are recognized as environments that can potentially result in COVID-19 surges; it doesn’t matter if its a beach, a bar, a sport stadium, or a city street. There’s more criticism of the rallies, however, because they’re controlled events, and because a president is generally expected to set an example of appropriate behavior. We expect more a president to be more thoughtful about the message he’s sending than we do from a crowd of angry young protesters.

“Meanwhile, the President’s rally was 18 days ago, all attendees had their temperature checked, everyone was provided a mask, and there was plenty of hand sanitizer available for all. It’s obvious that the media’s concern about large gatherings begins and ends with Trump rallies.”

The campaign has said that it provided attendees with face masks, but did not require them to be worn, which left the majority of rallygoers maskless that evening. Trump has resisted wearing a face mask in public, while the White House says masks are a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not a requirement.

Ahead of the Trump rally, Dart recommended that the event be postponed due to the risk of spreading the virus. He said at the time that he welcomed Trump’s visit, “but not during a pandemic.”

“I’m concerned about our ability to protect anyone who attends a large, indoor event, and I’m also concerned about our ability to ensure the president stays safe as well,” he said before the rally.

In the week after the rally, a reporter who had been present tested positive for the virus, the Associated Press reported. Last week former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain and Trump campaign official Kimberly Guilfoyle, who were both present at the Tulsa rally, also tested positive. The president and those around him are routinely tested for the virus.

“This is very sad. We need a president who cares about other human beings again,” said Andrew Bates, a Joe Biden campaign spokesperson, in a tweet about Dart’s comments on Wednesday.

@Greg: Likely but not 1 case actually contact traced to the event, how strange as cases were spiking prior to the rally.
Tulsa Factory Closes Due to Coronavirus Spike—a Week Before Trumps Rally the spike began about 20 days before the rally.
There is no solid scientific proof Asymptomatic can spread the virus, prove me wrong please. Show your work, link to a real study not consensus or opinion science.

@Greg: Some leftists pledged to go to the rally to spread the virus. Think they were successful? Or, was this spread from the left wing rioters outside?