China starts to report asymptomatic COVID-19 cases
01 April, 2020
Chinese health authorities started out on Wednesday (Apr 1) reporting on asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus within an attempt to allay public fears that persons could possibly be spreading the virus without knowing they are infected with it.
China, where the coronavirus emerged late this past year, has were able to bring its outbreak under control and is easing travel restrictions in virus hot spots.
But there are concerns that the finish of lockdowns will dsicover thousands of infectious people move back into daily life without knowing they carry the virus, because they haven't any symptoms therefore have not been tested.
Up to now, the amount of known asymptomatic cases has been classified, in fact it is not included in the official data, although South China Morning Post newspaper, citing unpublished official documents, recently said it had been more than 40,000.
In order to dispel public fears about hidden cases of the virus, the federal government has this week ordered health authorities to turn their attention to finding asymptomatic cases and releasing their data on them.
Health authorities in Liaoning province were the fist to do so on Wednesday, saying the province had 52 cases of folks with the coronavirus who showed no symptoms by Mar 31, they said in a statement on a provincial government website.
Hunan province said it had four such cases, every one of them imported from abroad, it said in a statement on its website.
The National Health Commission is due to start reporting aggregate, national data on asymptomatic cases down the road Wednesday.
There is debate among experts about how infectious asymptomatic cases are however the commission has said all cases will be centrally quarantined for two weeks.It said 1,541 persons with asymptomatic coronavirus infections were under observation as of the finish of Monday.
China has had a lot more than 81,000 cases of the coronavirus and 3,305 deaths.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
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