ArticleBMJ open2021
Relative infectiousness of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected persons compared with symptomatic individuals: a rapid scoping review.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed.
- Generation time in a discrete epidemic model with asymptomatic carriers: beyond geometric waiting times.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2027Article
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- Smart epidemic control: A hybrid model blending ODEs and agent-based simulations for optimal, real-world intervention planning.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Mixture and Non-Mixture Cure Models for the survival analysis of SARS-CoV-2 patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.Pakistan journal of medical sciences · 2024Article
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- Exploring the impact of population ageing on the spread of emerging respiratory infections and the associated burden of mortality.BMC infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Wastewater-based modeling, reconstruction, and prediction for COVID-19 outbreaks in Hungary caused by highly immune evasive variants.Water research · 2023Article
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- Modelling the epidemiological implications for SARS-CoV-2 of Christmas household bubbles in England.Journal of theoretical biology · 2023Article
- Optimizing the nucleic acid screening strategy to mitigate regional outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in China: a modeling study.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2023Article
- Estimation of the incubation period and generation time of SARS-CoV-2 Alpha and Delta variants from contact tracing data.Epidemiology and infection · 2022Article
- Mathematical modeling to study the impact of immigration on the dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study for Venezuela.Spatial and spatio-temporal epidemiology · 2022Article
- Investigation of turning points in the effectiveness of Covid-19 social distancing.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- State-controlled epidemic in a game against a novel pathogen.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Rapid antigen testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection in a university setting in Ireland: Learning from a 6-week pilot study.Public health in practice (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- Article
- Assessing the impact of lateral flow testing strategies on within-school SARS-CoV-2 transmission and absences: A modelling study.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Optimizing COVID-19 surveillance using historical electronic health records of influenza infections.PNAS nexus · 2022Article
- Modeling comparative cost-effectiveness of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine dose fractionation in India.Nature medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe aim of this study was to determine the relative infectiousness of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infected persons compared with symptomatic individuals based on a scoping review of available literature.
designRapid scoping review of peer-reviewed literature from 1 January to 5 December 2020 using the LitCovid database and the Cochrane library.
settingInternational studies on the infectiousness of individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.
participantsStudies were selected for inclusion if they defined asymptomatics as a separate cohort distinct from presymptomatics and if they provided a quantitative measure of the infectiousness of asymptomatics relative to symptomatics. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: PCR result (PCR studies), the rate of infection (mathematical modelling studies) and secondary attack rate (contact tracing studies) - in each case from asymptomatic in comparison with symptomatic individuals.
resultsThere are only a limited number of published studies that report estimates of relative infectiousness of asymptomatic compared with symptomatic individuals. 12 studies were included after the screening process. Significant differences exist in the definition of infectiousness. PCR studies in general show no difference in shedding levels between symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals; however, the number of study subjects is generally limited. Two modelling studies estimate relative infectiousness to be 0.43 and 0.57, but both of these were more reflective of the infectiousness of undocumented rather than asymptomatic cases. The results from contact tracing studies include estimates of relative infectiousness of 0, but with insufficient evidence to conclude that it is significantly different from 1.
conclusionsThere is considerable heterogeneity in estimates of relative infectiousness highlighting the need for further investigation of this important parameter. It is not possible to provide any conclusive estimate of relative infectiousness, as the estimates from the reviewed studies varied between 0 and 1.
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