Not everyone who comes into contact with the coronavirus ends up getting sick. But just how many people out there have the virus and are feeling fine, and are perhaps unintentionally spreading it to others?
Professor Ates Kara, a member of the country’s Science Board has stated that Turkey will carry out tests in order to trace who are unknowingly carrying the virus. He quoted that “data suggest that some 30 percent of the coronavirus cases in the countries around the world are those “ghost spreaders,” which mean asymptomatic virus carriers. If we do have 122,000 cases in Turkey, then there might be some 36,000 out there who carry the virus or have the disease without showing any symptoms”.
Early evidence showed that people can still infect others, even if they seem healthy. This is one of the main reasons that the Centre for Disease Control recommends that everyone wears a mask in public so that people who don’t know they have the virus don’t accidentally infect others with it.
Jeffrey Shaman, a professor at Columbia University says that he has gathered evidence and that estimates in China show around 86% of infections in the early stages were transmitted by people who did not feel ill enough to go to the doctor. He has also published that random testing done in Iceland showed that 50% of people who tested positive had no symptoms.
Although it will be difficult to track all asymptomatic virus carriers, Professor Kara has said that there are more accurate results from newly advanced tests.
In Turkey they carry out tests on certain groups which they call the “filiation” method. Anyone who has caught the coronavirus or tests positive, all close contacts are also tested.
There are approximately 4,000 teams tracing people who may have caught the virus.
