Since the arrival of COVID19 in the US last March, the favorite tool of Kate Brown and Pat Allen - along with many other tyrants throughout the US and the world - has been a combination of lockdowns and masks, even though it has been clearly shown time and time again that they do nothing to "control" the virus spread. The rationale for the use of these previously rejected methods is the myth of asymptomatic spread; the idea that if someone has the virus, they can actually transmit it to someone else, even if the person is not showing any symptoms. As documented by AIER back in November, back in June, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the Worthless Health Organization’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, made a statement at a press conference that asyptomatic spread was very rare, if it happened at all. As would be expected from the fear-driven left, there was immediate political blowback, not because she had stated anything that didn't match the data, but because if didn't fit the pre-determined narrative that COVID is as bad as the Black Death, and infection = instant death. So of course, the WHO did its best to walk back her statistically backed statements.

Then, in November, a study of 10 million residents in Wuhan, China (aka COVID Central) was released in the journal Nature that revealed that out of 10 million people, not one case of asymptomatic spread was found.

Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown.

However, that has not stopped Kate and Pat from continuing with their worthless and destructive lockdowns, starting with a "pause" in November, and continuing with their "risk" classifications based on arbitrary "community infection" rates, that continued to destroy businesses, along with the mental health and education of our school age kids.

Now comes another study from rural Wisconsin about the safety of opening schools. Of course, it pushes the pro-mask narrative, but there is other data in the study that undercuts the myth of asymptomatic spread.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control slipped in a shocking piece of evidence in a recent report on low in-school COVID-19 transmission that severely undercuts the rationale for most COVID restrictions, including lockdowns.

The Jan. 29 report’s conclusion seems to fit the pro-mask narrative, of course: “Schools might be able to safely open with appropriate mitigation efforts [such as masking and not allowing student cohorts to mix] in place.” In the 17 rural Wisconsin schools surveyed, only seven cases were linked to in-school transmission out of 4,876 pupils, and no staff members were infected at school during the study period.

While the report spends ample time explaining the mitigation strategies employed in the schools and the high reported mask compliance (92%) among students, the authors later discuss something you probably have not seen in any of the mainstream media’s coverage of this report:

“Children might be more likely to be asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 than are adults…This apparent lack of transmission [in schools] is consistent with recent research (5), which found an asymptomatic attack rate of only 0.7% within households and a lower rate of transmission from children than from adults. However, this study was unable to rule out asymptomatic transmission within the school setting because surveillance testing was not conducted” (emphasis added).

The “recent research” the study authors cite is a meta-analysis of 54 household COVID-19 transmission studies that observed 77,758 participants, which was posted as a pre-print this summer and published in December.

The text of the analysis is even more consequential than the CDC’s reference makes it seem:

“Estimated mean household secondary attack rate from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) was significantly higher than from asymptomatic or presymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%; P < .001), although there were few studies in the latter group. These findings are consistent with other household studies28,70 reporting asymptomatic index cases as having limited role in household transmission” (emphasis added).

The 0.7 percent figure includes not just people who never show symptoms of COVID-19, but people who haven’t yet shown symptoms—two groups that have been alleged to be major factors driving the spread of the virus. This is a major data point often underplayed or even challenged in much media coverage of the virus.

So why is this important?

The key, if not central, rationale for non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masking, distancing, and staying at home is allegedly significant transmission from people who don’t show symptoms. If the contagiousness of people without symptoms is not what drives the spread of SARS-COV-2, then no COVID restriction on public life besides staying home when you are clearly sick could be justified, considering the obvious negative consequences of these restrictions.

The 0.7 percent figure might even be a modest estimate of overall asymptomatic/presymptomatic transmission because the studies were among household contacts only—people who have close and extended contact with one another daily.

The CDC’s Pandemic Planning Scenario “best estimates” for COVID-19 transmission still have transmission “occurring prior to symptom onset” pegged at 50 percent, however. The footnote for this estimate does not cite the meta-analysis noted above, or any contact tracing studies at all. Instead, the upper and lower bounds of transmissibility are based on one study of viral shedding (which doesn’t necessarily equate to contagiousness) and a meta-analysis estimating presymptomatic spread using “incubation period, serial interval and generation time” data.

The CDC’s previously quoted statements, that children may be more likely to be asymptomatic carriers and that this squares with a 0.7 percent asymptomatic attack rate, undercut lockdown proponents’s assumption that a high percentage of asymptomatic cases must mean a high percentage of asymptomatic spread. The CDC seems to admit here that the opposite may be true: that if kids really are more likely to be asymptomatic, then transmission and proportion of asymptomatic cases may actually be inversely correlated, as asymptomatic people just don’t get many people sick.

The only way to circumvent this finding to justify COVID restrictions is to say asymptomatics and presymptomatics are highly contagious in making others test positive without feeling sick. Some of those cases may eventually infect someone who develops symptoms, which may eventually lead to someone being hospitalized. That’s quite the leap, and “the science and the data,” as politicians like to say, hasn’t done much to close the gap.

So in other words, the science says that kids are the most asymptomatic, and that they aren't vectors.

This finding across 54 studies of 0.7 percent asymptomatic and presymptomatic household transmission is, of course, by no means the final say on how contagious such individuals really are. It is an important data point that should be shared with the public, however.

Not something that Kate and Pat would do, or even heed, for sure.

As emergency medicine physician and associate professor at Brown University Megan Ranney said recently on STAT News’ podcast, “We know from our scientific research that myths and untruths, even if debunked, are likely to be remembered,” noting that “there may be statements that we need to take back sometimes.” Is the CDC’s belief that COVID-19 transmission from people who don’t show symptoms is a major driver of the virus’ spread just that kind of statement?

It’s time solid data from real-world transmission studies, not models, be used to support the basis for the onerous restrictions put on Americans over the past 11 months and continued to this day.

To me, it's always interesting how the fear-based leadership of our state,and people like the Worthless Health Organization and Dr. Fauci, always rely on data models from places like IHME, and they selectively ignore real-life data and experiences. But when you have a narrative to support, you can't let facts get in the way.