The time scale of asymptomatic transmission affects estimates of epidemic potential in the COVID-19 outbreak

The role of asymptomatic carriers in transmission poses challenges for control of the COVID-19 pandemic. Study of asymptomatic transmission and implications for surveillance and disease burden are ongoing, but there has been little study of the implications of asymp- tomatic transmission on dynamics of disease. We use a mathematical framework to evaluate expected effects of asymptomatic transmission on the basic reproduction number ℛ 0 (i.e., …