key: cord-267579-gkvd0fol
authors: Yang, Xiaoyu; Chen, Fan
title: Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19 and The Multi-Point Aerosol Sampling to Assess Risks in OR During Pandemic Period
date: 2020-07-27
journal: World Neurosurg
DOI: 10.1016/j.wneu.2020.07.144
sha: 
doc_id: 267579
cord_uid: gkvd0fol

nan

The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) causing acute infectious pneumonia has widely spread in China and other countries in the world. Globally, as of 5:01pm CEST, 18 July 2020, there have been 13,876,441 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 593,087 deaths, reported to WHO 1 . Studies have documented that novel coronavirus spread through human-to-human transmission in hospital and family setting 2,3 . Nevertheless, the transmission of the novel coronavirus from an asymptomatic carrier should be considered as a source of the infection of COVID-19 as well 4 . It has been demonstrated that viral load detected in the asymptomatic patients was comparable to that in the symptomatic patients, suggesting the transmission potential of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients 5 .

Therefore, it is of significance to identify and isolate asymptomatic carriers as well as patients with mild symptoms to prevent the spread of the virus. To achieve this, asymptomatic patients has been comprised in the daily report and released by the government of the People's Republic of China from 1 April 2020. But attention was paid insufficiently to this aspect in other regions including the US and Europe.

Currently, China has lifted coronavirus restrictions, and some of the European countries have also started to ease lockdown from the Mid-May 2020. We should be alert for a potential second wave of infections from the massive movement after lockdowns ease owing to the certain level of infectivity of asymptomatic carriers.

Since the resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024 6 and potentially detect or discover new pathogens with pandemic potential. We believe that when used in combination with molecular diagnostic technology, aerosol sampling is expected to serve as a non-invasive tool to monitor SARS-CoV-2 in Operating room(OR). And in the stage of pandemic period, the availability of aerosol sampling in OR is important to encourage analytical efforts by independent teams and provide robust evidence to guide interventions.

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