30 June
Health officials and government authorities ignored the risk of asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 despite mounting evidence from scientists across the world.
Acknowledgement of the risk would have necessitated drastic containment measures, something which government officials were reluctant to implement.
Timely response was the most crucial element for stopping the global spread of the disease.
Paul Romer, an economist, shared a New York Times article on how a two-month delay over public health response to Covid-19 led to its global spread.
The delay was due to faulty scientific assumptions and resistance towards new evidence on the evolving nature of the disease, which resulted in a sluggish response to controlling the spread of the virus.
Despite some scientists raising red flags over asymptomatic transmission, the warnings were dismissed by health officials and political leaders.
Asymptomatic transmission would have required more aggressive methods of containment including wearing of masks by healthy persons and restriction of international travel.
The reluctance of adopt such drastic measures was one of the main reasons for the global spread of the disease that has cost thousands of lives, the article adds.
