Pedestrians wear face coverings and protective masks as they cross Mains street, Monday, June 8, 2020, in the Flushing section of the Queens borough of New York. After three bleak months, New York City will try to turn a page when it begins reopening Monday after getting hit first by the coronavirus, then an outpouring of rage over racism and police brutality. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
A top World Health Organization expert has tried to clear up “misunderstandings” about comments she made that were widely understood to suggest that people without COVID-19 symptoms rarely transmit the coronavirus.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the UN health agency's technical lead on the virus pandemic, insisted Tuesday that she was referring only to a few studies, not a complete picture, in the comments she made Monday.
Van Kerkhove's remarks on Monday raised confusion and questions among outside experts and health officials who have recommended and in some places required that people wear masks to try to prevent the virus from spreading.
The “clarification” she provided during a WHO social-media chat showed many questions remain about whether infected people who don’t show symptoms of illness such as fever, dry cough or difficulty breathing can transmit the virus to others.
Van Kerkhove said: “What I was referring to yesterday were very few studies, some two or three studies that have been published, that actually try to follow asymptomatic cases.”
“That’s a very small subset of studies,” she continued. “I used the phrase ‘very rare,’ and I think that that’s (a) misunderstanding to state that asymptomatic transmission globally is very rare. What I was referring to was a subset of studies.”
Americans across the country this weekend celebrated Juneteenth, marking the relatively new national holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings as they commemorated the end of slavery after the Civil War.
Alina Hauptman of Best Friends Animal Society highlights some new pets up for adoption and gives some pointers on how to keep pets safe from wildfire smoke.
If you thought getting older meant slowing down, we want to introduce you to a group that's proving you're never too old to soar through the skies. News 12 visited an airport in Danbury, Connecticut to meet a hobbyist group called the United Flying Octogenarians.
Nat and Alex Wolff, the New York-native brother duo, both of whom started out on the Nickelodeon hit series "The Naked Brothers Band," joined Cheddar News to discuss their new album, "Table for Two."
All major social media platforms do poorly at protecting LGBTQ+ users from hate speech and harassment — especially those who are transgender, non-binary or gender non-conforming, the advocacy group GLAAD said Thursday. But Twitter is the worst.
