[The Journal of the American Medical Association] Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19

The Journal of the American Medical Association, 21 Feb 2020

Yan Bai, Lingsheng Yao, Tao Wei, Fei Tian, Dong-Yan Jin, Lijuan Chen, Meiyun Wang

Highlights

• Person-to-person transmission has been demonstrated
• Yet, to our knowledge, transmission of the novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from an asymptomatic carrier with normal chest computed tomography (CT) findings has not been reported.
• Enrolled a familial cluster of 5 patients with fever and respiratory symptoms who were admitted to the Fifth People’s Hospital of Anyang, Anyang, China, and 1 asymptomatic family member
• The sequence of events suggests that the coronavirus may have been transmitted by the asymptomatic carrier.
• If the findings in this report of presumed transmission by an asymptomatic carrier are replicated, the prevention of COVID-19 infection would prove challenging.
• The mechanism by which asymptomatic carriers could acquire and transmit the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 requires further study.

Full text available at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762028