Agencies

SARS-CoV-2 � the virus that causes COVID-19 can produce a range of clinical manifestations.

Some people who are infected never develop any symptoms at all. These patients are considered true asymptomatic cases.

When people do get sick from the coronavirus, it takes on average five days and as many as two weeks to develop symptoms that can range from very mild to extremely dangerous. The time between initial infection and the first symptoms is called the pre-symptomatic phase.

As an infectious disease physician, when I hear about asymptomatic spread of SARS-CoV-2, I think of a person who doesn�t have symptoms at the moment they give the virus to someone else. It doesn�t matter whether they are a true asymptomatic case or just pre-symptomatic; the public health risk is the same.