Efficient high throughput SARS-CoV-2 testing to detect asymptomatic carriers

Noam Shental; Shlomia Levy; Shosh Skorniakov; Vered Wuvshet; Yonat Shemer-Avni; Angel Porgador; Tomer Hertz

described transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from a German patient who was infected by a Chinese businesswoman who visited Germany 15 . Importantly, she was asymptomatic during her visit to Germany, and only developed symptoms after returning to China. Two other German co-workers were infected but only came in contact with the German patient who was asymptomatic. Mizumoto et al. 3 reported that 50.5% of infected patients on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship were asymptomatic at time of diagnosis. Using a model, they estimated that the estimated asymptomatic proportion (among all infected cases) was 17.9% (95%CrI: 15.5-20.2%). Another study of evacuated Japanese nationals from Wuhan China, estimated that 30.8% of subjects were asymptomatic (95% CI: 7.7%-53.8%) 16 .