Assertion

Asymptomatic people could be responsible for 40 percent of COVID-19 transmissions.

Response

A massive study in China determined that of 300 asymptomatic carriers they identified, there were zero transmissions of COVID-19 to the 1,174 people who had “close contact” with these asymptomatic carriers.

In June 2020, similar data was given by Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s diseases and zoonosis unit, who said that transmission by asymptomatic people was very rare, that they had a number of reports from countries doing contact tracing, and according to those reports, they weren’t finding secondary transmission onward, that asymptomatic people were not the “main driver” of new infections. She drew the logical conclusion that governments should focus on those who actually have symptoms. The next day, however, the world saw exactly how political the science had become when Kerkhove drastically changed her tune, saying that she hadn’t been stating the policy of WHO, that it was a misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare, and that 40 percent of all COVID-19 transmissions could be occurring through asymptomatic people.