On Monday, an expert from the World Health Organization (WHO) said asymptomatic transmissions are “very rare.” This comment brought furious debates among scientists. 

The WHO  then walked back the statement by saying “there is still too much unknown about this virus and still too much unknown about its transmission dynamics.” 

While some studies suggest that people without symptoms can spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, it is still unclear how frequently it happens.  

CDC guidelines show that someone who may have been in touch with a COVID positive person should be in quarantine for 14 days even if they have no symptoms.

Asymptomatic individuals could spread the virus for eight days while patients with symptoms could spread it for 19 days.

One study found that individuals who are asymptomatic are infectious for a shorter period of time than those who had symptoms.

However, the study had a small sample size; researchers conducted close contact tracing based on 78 patients from 26 cluster cases in China. Among 78 cases, a total of 33 patients (42.3%) were asymptomatic, while 45 patients (57.7%) were symptomatic.

The president can issue an executive on anything he wants, but its impact and legality is a question. Trump signed an executive order that could limit social media companies’ legal protections after Twitter began fact-checking on his posts.

According to The Washington Post, lawmakers in Congress and a variety of legal experts from across the political spectrum “doubted the legality of Trump’s draft proposal and feared its implications for free speech.”

Some in the tech industry even began quietly discussing their legal options, including a potential lawsuit challenging Trump’s order, The Washington Post reported.

The UK had the highest death rate – 891 deaths per million – from COVID-19 pandemic until Thursday among countries producing comparable data.

However, Spain made a revision to its mortality estimates, adding 12,000 to its toll of excess deaths from coronavirus in a one-off adjustment to 43,000. This increased its death rate to 921 per million.

The absolute number of excess deaths in the UK is the highest in Europe, and second only to the US in global terms, according to data collected by the Financial Times.

Total excess deaths per million people:

1. Spain

2. UK

3. Italy

Total excess deaths:

1. US

2. UK

3. Italy

Based on a study of 96,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, people who received an antimalarial drug touted by President Trump to fight against the virus had a significantly higher risk of death compared to those who did not receive the antimalarial drug, according to The Washington Post.

The study concluded that although hydroxychloroquine, or chloroquine, are being widely used for the treatment of COVID-19, there is “no conclusive evidence of their benefit” and “the safety and benefit of these treatment regimens are poorly evaluated in COVID-19.”

Children do get COVID-19, but they tend to have mild symptoms. Reported symptoms in children include cold-like symptoms, such as fever, runny nose, and cough. Vomiting and diarrhea have also been reported.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on available evidence, children do not appear to be at higher risk for COVID-19 than adults. While some children and infants have been sick with COVID-19, adults make up most of the known cases to date.

There is some research about this, but there is no proof that it is true.

French researchers released a study indicating that smokers were statistically less likely to be admitted for treatment for COVID-19.

Following the study, according to BBC, plans are being made to investigate if nicotine patches and other quit-smoking aids can help combat COVID-19 by a group of Welsh doctors.

While welsh doctors investigate if nicotine may protect people from the virus, they differentiated nicotine from smoking; they issued a strong non-smoking message saying they are far more likely to die from it if they catch the virus.

Doctors in two different regions, one in Long Island in New York and the other one in Los Angeles, are in the process of testing a hypothesis if sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, can help male patients survive from coronavirus.

Scientists who study sex differences say that both biological differences in immunity, as well as behavioral factors, are at play. According to The New York Times, “while women appear to have more robust immune systems, the causes are complex and multi-factorial and hormones are only part of the picture.”

Using The scientists wrote in a journal – “Seasonality and uncertainty in COVID-19 growth rates”– that “we found that ultraviolet light was most strongly associated with lower COVID-19 growth rates.”

The study suggests that coronavirus will decrease temporarily during summer, rebound by autumn and peak next winter. However, the study acknowledged that “uncertainty remains high.”

It has not yet been peer-reviewed yet, however, which means the journal reports new medical research that has yet to be evaluated and so should not be used to guide clinical practice.

In Korea, a total of 163 people (2.1% of 7,829 cases that have been discharged from isolation), as of Friday, have tested positive again after being discharged from isolation. KCDC is still investigating the cause, and it will take at least two weeks.

According to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• On average, it took 13.5 days (min 1 day; max 35 days) between discharge from isolation and retesting positive.
• Of the 137 retested-positive cases with reported clinical and epidemiological information, 61(43.9%) cases were symptomatic. All of the 61 symptomatic cases had mild symptoms.

Most experts think it’s unlikely that somebody will be re-infected for the coronavirus soon after recovering. It’s possible that issues with testing – or varying amounts of viral RNA in the body, which the tests look for – could explain why people tested positive after testing negative.