Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-27-2022
School
Health Professions
Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) asymptomatic cases are hard to identify, impeding transmissibility estimation. The value of COVID-19 transmissibility is worth further elucidation for key assumptions in further modelling studies. Through a population-based surveillance network, we collected data on 1342 confirmed cases with a 90-days follow-up for all asymptomatic cases. An age-stratified compartmental model containing contact information was built to estimate the transmissibility of symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. The difference in transmissibility of a symptomatic and asymptomatic case depended on age and was most distinct for the middle-age groups. The asymptomatic cases had a 66.7% lower transmissibility rate than symptomatic cases, and 74.1% (95% CI 65.9–80.7) of all asymptomatic cases were missed in detection. The average proportion of asymptomatic cases was 28.2% (95% CI 23.0–34.6). Simulation demonstrated that the burden of asymptomatic transmission increased as the epidemic continued and could potentially dominate total transmission. The transmissibility of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases is high and asymptomatic COVID-19 cases play a significant role in outbreaks.
Publication Title
Epidemiology & Infection
Volume
150
Recommended Citation
Tan, J.,
Ge, Y.,
Martinez, L.,
Sun, J.,
Li, C.,
Westbrook, A.,
Chen, E.,
Pan, J.,
Li, Y.,
Cheng, W.,
Ling, F.,
Chen, Z.,
Shen, Y.,
Huang, H.
(2022). Transmission Roles of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic COVID-19 Cases: A Modelling Study. Epidemiology & Infection, 150.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/20519