HealthDay Reports: Half of People With COVID-19 Don't Have Symptoms, Iceland Research Shows
Past research has suggested that one aspect of what makes COVID-19 so dangerous is that people with no symptoms or who have only mild symptoms are playing a huge role in spreading the virus to others without even realizing it.
HealthDay took a look at research in Iceland that found that up to half of people who tested positive for COVID-19 there didn't display any symptoms.
Read the full story below.
Half of People With COVID-19 Do Not Have Symptoms, Iceland Testing Shows
WEDNESDAY, April 1, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Up to half of people who test positive for the new coronavirus do not have symptoms, results from Iceland show.
As of March 31, more than 17,900 people in Iceland had been tested for the virus, nearly 5 percent of its population, CNN reported. The National University Hospital tests people who are high-risk or have symptoms, but nearly half the tests have been conducted in the wider population by the biopharmaceutical company deCODE Genetics.
Fewer than 1 percent of the tests conducted by the company were positive for coronavirus, but about 50 percent of people who tested positive had no symptoms, company founder Kári Stefánsson, M.D., told CNN. That supports previous research suggesting that people with no or mild symptoms play a significant role in spreading the coronavirus.
"What it means in my mind, is that because we are screening the general population, we are catching people early in the infection before they start showing symptoms," Stefánsson told CNN.