Health officials in China have revealed they did not include asymptomatic patients with the coronavirus as they tallied data on its outbreak in the country of more than 1.3 billion people.
China said Tuesday there are currently 1,541 citizens there who have the virus but are not showing symptoms, including 205 people who have returned recently from overseas travel.
The country has reported more than 80,000 cases of the disease, 76,000 of which have recovered.
Chang Jile, a top Chinese health official, said the country will soon begin including asymptomatic patients as part of its official tally “in order to respond to society’s concern in a timely manner,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
World health officials have warned that one of the factors leading to difficulty containing the coronavirus is its ability to spread among carriers who are not showing symptoms.
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China, where the virus originated, has been widely criticized by other nations and President Trump for not doing more to contain the initial spread of COVID-19 and underreporting how many citizens had gotten sick with the resulting disease.
“You don’t know what the numbers are in China,” Trump told reporters at the White House last Thursday. “China tells you numbers and … you just don’t know, you know, what are the numbers?”
Chinese officials have begun the process of reopening factories, schools, and other nonessential businesses following the virus outbreak in Wuhan in January.
More than 800,000 cases of the virus have been reported worldwide. In the United States, that number has surpassed 160,00 and has led to more than 3,000 deaths as of Tuesday.
Trump extended federal guidelines Sunday to combat the virus, including social distancing and voluntary self-isolation.
