A Silent Infection Pandemic of COVID-19: Epidemiological Investigation and Hypothetical Models

Abstract

To explore the epidemic mode of COVID-19, we made an epidemiological investigation, set up hypothetical models, and compared them with hepatitis A virus (HAV) age-specific epidemic characteristic. In the epidemiological investigation, we reported the first familial COVID-19 silent infection in the world. A 19-year-old healthy female COVID-19 virus carrier without any symptoms caused two mild and one severe pneumonia. In hypothetical models, the silent infection rate ranges from 60% to 80% based on 3 sources: China mainland, evacuation of 4 nationals, and the ship "Diamond Princess,"respectively. In comparison with HAV, COVID-19 shows the same infection mode in children (aged 0-9 years), but significant difference in young adults (aged 10-44 years) and the elderly (aged 45 years or older). Therefore, we prejudged that COVID-19 is a silent infection pandemic mainly in young adults but threatens the elderly.