Publication date: Nov 30, 2024
The importance of asymptomatic transmission was a key discovery in our efforts to study and intervene in the COVID-19 pandemic. In Asymptomatic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Joshua Weitz uses this aspect of SARS-CoV-2 natural history to discuss many counterintuitive characteristics of the pandemic. In this essay, I engage the arguments in the book, and discuss why asymptomatic transmission is such a critical dimension of the study of infectious diseases. I explore ideas contained within Asymptomatic and connect them to related issues in evolutionary virology and disease ecology, including epistemic uncertainty and the evolution of virulence. Furthermore, I comment on the broader messages in the text, including the gap between scientific knowledge and social understanding.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Ecology | asymptomatic transmission |
| Evolutionary | COVID-19 |
| Joshua | epidemiology |
| Virus | science |
| society | |
| virus evolution |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | COVID-19 pandemic |
| disease | IDO | history |
| disease | MESH | infectious diseases |
| disease | MESH | uncertainty |
| disease | IDO | virulence |