COVID-19: Understanding the confusion over asymptomatic carriers

Earlier this Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove of the World Health Organization caused great confusion — and some excitement — when she was quoted saying that asymptomatic spread of COVID-19 is “very rare.” A day later, following massive outcry from members of the scientific community, Van Kerkove walked back the assertion and explained that her statements had been taken out of context. Yahoo News Medical Contributor Dr. Kavita Patel sets the record straight and explains why this rare misstep from the WHO could have major consequences.

Video transcript

KAVITA PATEL: On June 8, the World Health Organization, during a press conference, made a statement that it was extremely rare or that, in general, it would be rare for an asymptomatic person to infect other people with the coronavirus.

MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: We are constantly looking at this data, and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward.

KAVITA PATEL: So while it might have sounded like good news--

- Some potentially very good news was released today from the World Health Organization.

KAVITA PATEL: --a number of health experts and public officials in cries around the world basically said that that seemed like a pretty drastic statement and called the question the data upon which the World Health Organization, or WHO, could make such a statement.

- The director at the Harvard Global Health Institute has blamed the WHO for creating confusion, tweeting out that communication by the WHO is not stellar and such a statement should be accompanied by data.

KAVITA PATEL: The very next day, on June 9, one of the scientific leads for the World Health Organization walked back her own statement.

MARIA VAN KERKHOVE: What I was referring to yesterday in the press conference were a very few studies, some two or three studies, that have been published that actually try to follow asymptomatic cases, so people who are infected, over time and then look at all of their contacts and see how many additional people were infected. And that's a very small subset of studies. And so I was responding to a question at the press conference. I wasn't stating a policy of WHO or anything like that. I was just trying to articulate what we know.

KAVITA PATEL: What this 24 hours of confusion tells us is that there's a lot about this virus that we do not know. However, as the entire country is reopening and in different phases of reopening, this initial misinformation or misinterpretation of information from the WHO is incredibly dangerous because it could send the wrong signal that we just don't have to worry as much about people who don't have symptoms or that we can let our guard down if people don't look sick.

- Another chapter in COVID confusion, a bit of oh god, what? Are-- are you for real?

- We did what for how long because why?

KAVITA PATEL: This is just yet again another undermining of the credibility that the WHO has actually been trying to maintain, despite the United States officially withdrawing from the World Health Organization.

- Is it that they just don't know that this is evolving, that this is science? What do you-- what do you make of this?

- I don't know, Juan. I don't speak or read idiocy. So this is why we're defunding the World Health Organization.

KAVITA PATEL: So what does this mean, or what are the implications? Well, it depends on who you are. So for the regular American, member of the public, this means that you have to still wear masks, practice hand hygiene-- washing your hands, hand sanitizer-- and continuing social distancing whenever and wherever possible.

And if you're a business owner and you're trying to reopen safely in this economy and gain back some of the losses that you've had, do as much as you can to make your customers and the people coming into your businesses feel safe because all of this information tells us, we just don't know enough. But if you can reopen whatever your footprint is in a safe way, we can all hopefully keep this virus as close to zero as possible.