Asymptomatic people Spread the Covid19 Disease just as well as the Spluttering ones
You don't need to cough or sneeze to infect people with your Covid19 variant because you propel virions attached to saliva droplets during normal speech.
Sadly there are those who pretend that Covid19 infected Asymptomatic people are not walking superspreaders. Their motivations are varied. Let us look at actual Science.
Our mouths are home to a richly diverse population of Bacteria, which we propel toward friends and family attached to saliva droplets during normal speech, enhanced by singing. Viruses go along for the ride.1
Of course they live in our noses as well, so a sneeze can be better than a cough in the spread of pathogens.2
How Far will my Cough or Sneeze Travel?
I you have Covid19 feeding and breeding on the ACE2 rich areas of your mouth that the Virus absolutely loves, you will infect many people within a large range as shown in glorious detail. Note the scale is in Metres, or Meters if you prefer.3
How many Covid19 virions can we count?
Our mouths and noses are a fabulous breeding ground for Covid19, much smaller than bacteria, but happily swimming in fluids they call home.
Numerous research groups have used advanced engineering to study the number and size distribution of particles exhaled by humans.45
How many Asymptomatic Carriers are there?
Latest analysis, thanks to one of our illustrious Deep Diving Data crunchers who wishes to remain anonymous, reveals huge numbers of Asymptomatic Covid19 infected people using the US Decoy monitoring system for the Jabbed, known as V-Safe.
It shows a strange spike in numbers immediately after Pfizer changed its formula to include Tromethamine.
Note the huge increase in percentage of registrants who had "breakthrough infections".
This is consistent with a pooled analysis from 95 studies that found 40.5% of cases were Asymptomatic.
26.94% of Close Contacts of Asymptomatic carriers were infected. I would round up following Science of significant digits to 27%. Lovely p values for those who like that sort of thing.6
Different Covid19 Viral Loads with Variants
In the UK, viral load when the Alpha variant hit was significantly greater than found for the Delta wave.7
Viral load shows a wide range for symptomatic carriers
Breakthrough infection in Sweden demonstrated a wide range of viral load for symptomatic and asymptomatic people who suffered breakthrough infections after 3 jabs.8
In Denmark the mean difference of Ct values between symptomatic and asymptomatic participants was not significant.9
A useful review found many Asymptomatic Carriers reported from various countries found that Asymptomatic people account for 40% to 45% of SARS-CoV-2 infections, and they can transmit the virus to others for an extended period, perhaps longer than 14 days. Asymptomatic infection may be associated with subclinical lung abnormalities, as detected by computed tomography.10
Large scale testing in UK showed a difference of no more that 2 PCR cycle times between Symptomatic and Asymptomatic carriers for recent Omicron variants.11
A study in California found no significant difference in cycle threshold values between vaccinated and unvaccinated, asymptomatic and symptomatic groups infected with SARS-CoV-2 Delta.12
A study in Germany by Drosten et al. found similar viral loads in presymptomatic, asymptomatic, and mildly symptomatic cases .13
A large study looked at Delta Variant viral loads of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic infected people detected in Wisconsin on 4 December 2021 and found no significant difference in their viral load.14
I have shortened the caption to their Fig 1. Individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 despite full vaccination have low Ct values and shed similar amounts of infectious virus as unvaccinated individuals. A. N1 Ct values for SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens were grouped by vaccination status from RT-PCR. N1 Ct values for SARS-CoV-2-positive specimens grouped by vaccination status for individuals who were symptomatic or either asymptomatic or did not have any information, at the time of testing. Light yellow box indicates Ct values <25. C. plaque assays on Vero E6 TMPRSS2 cells. Infectious titers are expressed as plaque-forming units (PFU) per milliliter of specimen.
June 2023 Update - Asymptomatic Superspreader
In early 2021, 36 people volunteers to be deliberately exposed to Covid19 so their infection and exhaled virions could be monitored. They were given tissue culture infectious dose of pre-Alpha wild-type SARS-CoV-2 (Asp614Gly) by Intranasal drops. It was found that Asymptomatic carriers emitted the most deadly virus to infect people around them and their noses were the greatest threat.15
Conclusion
This small sample of the literature is enough to convice me to take special care when meeting others because I could become infected and pass the current variant to others without experiencing symptoms as cases, reinfections and Deaths continue to climb in Australia.16
https://www.foxla.com/news/doctor-demonstrates-how-face-mask-blocks-respiratory-droplets-from-spreading
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342157309_Transmission_of_COVID-19_virus_by_droplets_and_aerosols_A_critical_review_on_the_unresolved_dichotomy
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/74/10/1722/6343417
https://aaqr.org/articles/aaqr-18-01-oa-0031
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2787098
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1009243/Technical_Briefing_20.pdf
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.04.02.22273333v2
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15243-1
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.21.22275368v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.28.21264262v2
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi5273
Riemersma KK, et al. 2022. Shedding of infectious SARS-CoV-2 despite vaccination. https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1010876
Zhou J, et al. 2023. Viral emissions into the air and environment after SARS-CoV-2 human challenge: a phase 1, open label, first-in-human study. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5247(23)00101-5/fulltext
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/