The Viral Loads of Asymptomatic Coronavirus Carriers Are Surprisingly High, Study Reveals
Source: Science Alert
People who are infected with the coronavirus carry similar levels of the pathogen in their nose, throat and lungs whether they have symptoms or not, a new study from South Korea showed Thursday.
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The group ranged in age from 22 to 36 and two-thirds were women. Of the total, 193 were symptomatic and 110 were asymptomatic.
Among those who were initially asymptomatic, 89 never developed symptoms at all – about 30 percent of the total.
This finding itself helps gives a sense of what portion of infected people are truly asymptomatic rather than merely "presymptomatic," a subject of confusion.
All were sampled at regular intervals after day eight of isolation, and the samples returned comparable values of the virus' genetic material from the upper and lower airways.
The median time taken for the patients to return negative tests was marginally less for asymptomatic patients compared with symptomatic: 17 and 19.5 days, respectively.
Read more: https://www.sciencealert.com/all-carriers-of-sars-cov-2-have-high-levels-of-the-virus-regardless-of-symptoms
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