As China begins to relax the lockdown across the country, on Wednesday, the Chinese health authorities directed medical fraternity to start testing for asymptomatic cases. This is an attempt to calm the citizens who were under the fear of a future outbreak.
China, the country where the COVID-19 first broke, has so far witnessed over 81,000 cases with 3,000 odd deaths. In March, the country saw a steep drop in the number of cases and experts claimed the flat curve by the second week. Most of the cases reported in China in the month of March has been imported cases and not through the local transmission. The hospitals opened specifically to treat the COVID-19 patients were closed. The Great Wall of China has reopened to tourists partially.
Rigorous Testing of Asymptomatic Patients
As the country prepares itself to go back to the ‘normal’ life, there has been increasing fear among people of contracting further infections. Even though the epicenter Wuhan hasn’t reported any new infections for over a week, there have been cases in other parts of China. In order to confront people’s worst fears and to further strengthen their medical preparation, China has employed a new strategy.
China has asked its healthcare workers to test for asymptomatic coronavirus cases who might be a possible carrier of the virus and when the lockdown is lifted, there is a high chance of others being infected. Though there haven’t been official numbers yet, a report in South China Morning Post estimates that there might have been 40,000 asymptomatic confirmed cases in China.
The health authorities in Liaoning province were the first to carry out tests on asymptomatic people. Up until Wednesday, there were 52 confirmed cases in the province who showed no symptoms. Hunan province reported 4 such cases – all of them imported. There has been a debate among experts on how infectious the asymptomatic patients are. All confirmed cases are quarantined for 14 days mandatorily. As on Wednesday, there were 1541 asymptomatic cases in quarantine.
The National Health Commission is said to report aggregate cases and come out with official numbers on Wednesday. Amidst this, there were reports of China reopening animal markets. Wuhan, the epicenter is expected to come out of lockdown on the 8th of April.
