Asymptomatic patients and immune subjects

first_page settings Open AccessEntry Asymptomatic Patients and Immune Subjects by Sheila Veronese * [ORCID] and Andrea Sbarbati Department of Neurosciences, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, Verona University, 10 Sq. L.A.Scuro, 37134 Verona, Italy * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Academic Editor: Stephen Bustin Encyclopedia 2022, 2(1), 109-126; https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia2010008 Received: 15 November 2021 / Revised: 21 December 2021 / Accepted: 7 January 2022 / Published: 11 January 2022 (This article belongs to the Collection Encyclopedia of COVID-19) Download PDF Browse Figures Citation Export Definition An asymptomatic patient is someone who contracts a disease but shows no symptoms. An immune subject is a person who is free from virus infection. Both of these categories of people experience the limitations of government imposed by a pandemic situation, with one important difference. Probably only the first subjects contribute, in spite of themselves, to the spread of the disease and to the contagion of the people most susceptible to the virus. This implies that their detection is essential to limit infections. Therefore, knowing the characteristics of these people and those immune to the virus can be extremely useful in mitigating the effects of the disease and/or defeating it.