25% of coronavirus carriers have no symptoms in US

According to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25% of coronavirus carriers have no symptoms.

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield stated: 

“Information that we have pretty much confirmed now is that a significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic. That may be as many as 25%.”

We already heard that in Iceland they had reported 50% of carriers were asymptomatic. Many people called into question that rate based on when testing was done and thought that follow ups would make that data more accurate.

For example, it is possible that the 50% that were asymptomatic in Iceland eventually developed symptoms a few days after they were tested.

It’s also possible that genetic differences could account for the different symptomatic rates or a number of other factors related to demographics like underlying health issues, smoking habits, median age, etc. 

In any event, it is clear that a significant segment of carriers will not present symptoms.

This is crazy to think about.

Just imagine the thousands of people that were among crowds or flying next to others in planes over the past month that were harboring the disease with no idea. Or all of those crowded bars and nightclubs where those people have been mingling for weeks…

And think about the transmission that took place from those people that went completely undetected. 

It really is pretty scary.

So with this new data, experts are trying to figure out the next best approach for mitigating the disease.

One of the logical steps seems to be advising the public to wear masks. I’ve talked about some of the pros sand cons with doing that and the biggest issue right now seems to be that it could take away from supplies needed from healthcare providers.

Personally, I think they should wait until after we have hit the peak of infection to widely distribute/recommend face masks to the public if things are getting cut close with the face mask medical inventory.

But if these masks, which are not the higher grade N95 masks, can be distributed widely without straining the healthcare system then I think we should go ahead and start getting over the stigma that we have attached to wearing a face mask in public.

This is especially true for those venture out into crowded settings or who do a lot of traveling. \

It might be a good idea to wait until things die down a bit and social distancing is coming to an end to implement masks since some experts are worried that people will stop social distancing if they have a mask on.

Either way, I think it is only a matter of time before mask wearing becomes a very common site in our country and I think it might be like that for several months or until we have a vaccine out there.