Silent Symptoms: Wuhan Detects 300 Asymptomatic Coronavirus Cases After Conducting 10 Million Tests on Chinese Residents

The epicentre of the entire coronavirus pandemic, Wuhan, in China has announced that after conducting 10 million tests on its residents over the past two weeks, they have only identified 300 asymptomatic cases.

LOCAL authorities notified the need for another detection campaign after the city sought to prevent a second wave of the coronavirus as they had registered a small outbreak after several weeks of no new infections.

The Municipal Health Commission in Wuhan has detailed that between May 14 and June 1, authorities carried out around 9.89 million tests, which all came back as negative because China does not consider any asymptomatic cases to be a positive case.

Furthermore, the municipal commission has pointed out that all of the 300 asymptomatic carriers are unable to spread the disease and that no traces of SARS-CoV-2 have even been identified on their personal effects such as their masks, toothbrushes or mobile phones.

However, for extra precaution all of those who have been identified as asymptomatic have been placed under quarantine, as well as an additional 1,174 people who have come into contact with these cases, although they too have been tested and results have come back negative.

Authorities are deeply satisfied at the results of this campaign which aimed to ensure there was not another outbreak of the virus. This campaign has contributed to reassure the population about their safety before they must reopen factories, businesses and schools after almost 11 weeks of very strict quarantine.

Nevertheless, these favourable results have not come cheap. The massive testing campaign has cost the local government approximately nine billion yen, which equates to more than €1.13 billion. At first this campaign sought to tests all family members, but ultimately, they decided to only test individuals over the age of six.

Tests were prioritised by risk factor and residential communities where previous outbreaks had been reported were amongst the first to get tested, as well as “old and densely populated buildings” says the state news agency Xinhua.