Covid-19: we are especially contagious the first 5 days

You do not have any symptoms of Covid-19 and are convinced that you do not have it, and that you cannot transmit it? You are wrong ! You can be a healthy carrier, and be just as contagious as conventional patients, explains Inserm.

If the question of the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by an asymptomatic person is particularly important, it is because it allows a better understanding of the measures to prevent and fight against the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic. According to Inserm, First international data suggests “the existence of carriers of SARS-CoV-2 who have no or very few symptoms, but who excrete viral particles in their saliva and nasal passages.”

This is part of the reason why it is so important to stay confined. For oneself, but also for others. Many people with the coronavirus being asymptomatic can still transmit the virus to others, who in turn may develop a serious clinical form of the disease requiring hospitalization.

Contagion is maximum the first 5 days

One thing seems to be true: a patient would start to be contagious long before the appearance of the first signs of the disease (during the incubation period). The transmission of Sars-CoV-2 from infected persons would be maximum “between 2 days before the appearance of clinical signs and 5 days after” declared the Scientific Council in its notice of September 3, 2020.

But a new British study specifies that it is above all during the first 5 days after the onset of the first symptoms that the contagiousness is the strongest. In this meta-analysis of 79 studies on Covid-19 that has just been published in The lancet microbe, the researchers found that the mean duration of covid-19 RNA excretion in the upper respiratory tract was 17 days. “But no study has detected a virus living beyond the 9th day of the disease, despite constantly high viral loads,” stress the researchers. “The viability of the virus is short, with an early peak observed at the time of onset of symptoms until the 5th day of the disease “they conclude.

This study shows that isolation practices should begin at the onset of the first symptoms, which can include mild and atypical symptoms. And confirms the uselessness of a period isolation greater than 7 full days after the onset of clinical symptoms for confirmed cases. “Beyond this period of isolation, the risk of transmission is very low, and the residual risk can be perfectly controlled by the rigorous wearing of the surgical mask, and the scrupulous follow-up of hygiene measures (regular hand washing) and physical distancing during the week following the lifting of isolation “underlined the Scientific Council.

Are children more contagious?

Are children more contagious than adults. Since the start of the pandemic, opinions have continued to evolve. An American study suggests that very young children (those who are under 5 years old) are major propagators of Covid-19. On the other hand, in a opinion of last September 17, the High Council for Public Health affirms that children are “not very active in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 “and that” lhe risk of transmission exists above all from adult to adult and from adult to child and rarely from child to child or child to adult “.

Also read: