The World Health Organization says it still believes the spread of the coronavirus from people without symptoms is “rare,” despite warnings from numerous experts worldwide that such transmission likely explains why the pandemic has been so hard to contain.
WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19 said at a press briefing on Monday that many countries are reporting cases of spread from people who are asymptomatic, or those with no clinical symptoms. But when questioned in more detail about these cases, many of them turn out to have mild disease, or unusual symptoms.
WHO maintains that people without symptoms probably account for about 6 percent of spread, at most.
