‘COVID-19 patients show symptoms most commonly in around five days’ - WHO - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
March 27, 2020
A video is being shared widely on social media in which a person claims that the people affected by COVID-19 will not show symptoms for the first 14 days. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
COVID-19 patients will not show symptoms for the first 14 days.
Fact: On the WHO website, it can be read that the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days. But, most commonly COVID-19 patients show symptoms in around five days. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched about the incubation period (i.e. the time between contracting the virus and showing symptoms of the disease) for COVID-19, on the WHO website, it can be read that ‘most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days, most commonly around five days’.
Also, talking to CALTECH community members, David Ho (a Caltech trustee and an expert on viral epidemics) has said, ‘The incubation period from exposure to onset of symptoms is between four and six days; and if you want to cover 95–98 percent of the cases it is between three and 10 days. It’s pretty rare to have an incubation period outside of that range’. A similar timeframe was also found in a study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
To sum it up, it is very rare for COVID-19 patients to show symptoms after 14 days.
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