Understanding that the whole thesis of contact tracing may just fall on this very issue [ of super spreaders ], if you have a small number of cases, you can clearly try to contact trace all of them, and you're not wondering if they're super spreaders or not. With many thousands of cases, you're always going to be trying to determine : what are the highest priority ? If you don't have a sense of who the super spreaders are, there's no way you can [ factor ] that in.

Michael Osterholm

At the very beginning of the outbreak, we had many questions about how transmission of this virus occurred. And unfortunately, we saw a number of people taking very firm stances about it was happening this way or it wasn't happening this way. And as we have continued to learn how transmission occurs with this outbreak, it is clear that many of those early statements were not correct, this is time for straight talk.

Michael Osterholm

We now know that asymptomatic transmission likely [plays] an important role in spreading this virus.

Michael Osterholm

She enjoys bridge and William Schaffner's an important part of her life and William Schaffner keeps her mentally active, but she's going to give William Schaffner up for a while.

Michael Osterholm

I think clearly the time has come to take these steps.

Michael Osterholm

I seriously doubt that the Chinese public officials have any data supporting this statement, i know of no evidence in 17 years of working with coronaviruses -- SARS and MERS -- where anyone has been found to be infectious during their incubation period.

Michael Osterholm