often does that occur and to what extent is that driving the current epidemic? My

name is Isaac Bogoch and I'm an infectious diseases specialist.

Based on a very high-profile study that was recently conducted the report

suggested that the virus was transmitted from someone with no symptoms to other

people. A person that traveled from China to Germany for a meeting. This person

reportedly felt well and then on her return trip back to China, it was

reported that she subsequently developed some signs and symptoms suggestive of an

infection and indeed this person did test positive for the novel coronavirus.

After that people that were close contacts of the traveler from China, who

were still in Germany developed some signs and symptoms of infection in it it

was found that they too were infected with this coronavirus. After the report

came out it seemed to be discovered that people that were involved with the

creation of this report actually never spoke with the individual who came down

with the infection directly. After some deeper digging it turns out that the

individual who flew in from China to Germany indeed had symptoms and it was

reported that she had some muscle aches and pains and wasn't feeling that well

and was even taking some medications to suppress her fevers. With social media in

everybody's palms you know there there always as the potential for the

circulation and of course the amplification of misinformation and

pseudoscience, so I think it's a good idea to pick a few reputable sources and

stick with a few reputable sources. There is certainly is a tremendous need for data

and of course high quality data, and this data can certainly help medical and

scientific teams prepare to treat patients and it also is helpful for

guiding policy and screening programs, treatment programs, prevention programs

vaccinations, and treatment programs. So the data is extremely important. I think

we just need to be mindful that not all data is created the same and of course

there can be some uncertainty with data if mistakes happen that's completely

okay we just have to be able to correct them quickly.

In general and we're dealing with respiratory infections it's usually the

case that people who have symptoms people who are coughing for example are

just more likely to transmit the infection from one person to another. I

also think we have to remember that symptoms can be very broad, some people

can have symptoms and be very very sick. But we're also hearing about people at

the much more mild end of the spectrum with symptoms that they don't even need

to seek medical care because their symptoms are more of a nuisance rather

than requiring hospitalization. One of the concerns is it might be challenging

to control an epidemic if people are walking around with mild symptoms

transmitting the infection because it's hard to find those individuals. It's hard

to identify them and isolate them or prevent them from spreading the

infection to others. With emerging data, we'll see what proportion of individuals

fall into that category