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FRANKFURT: It is likely that more than 10 times more people in Germany have been infected with the coronavirus than the number of confirmed cases, researchers at the University of Bonn have concluded in a field trial in one of the most affected cities.
The preliminary study results, which have not yet been peer-reviewed for publication in a scientific journal, serve as a reminder of the dangers of infection by unidentified carriers of the virus, some of which show no symptoms, the researchers said. researchers.
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The readings come as Germany took additional steps on Monday (May 2) to ease the restrictions, with museums, hairdressers, churches and more auto factories reopening under strict conditions.
Some 1.8 million people living in Germany must have been infected, more than 10 times the number of approximately 160,000 confirmed cases so far, the team led by medical researchers Hendrik Streeck and Gunther Hartmann concluded.
“The results may help to further improve models for calculating how the virus spreads. Until now, the underlying data has been relatively weak,” Hartmann said in a statement.
The team analyzed blood and nasal samples from a random sample of 919 people living in a city in the Heinsberg municipality on the Dutch border, which had one of the highest death tolls in Germany.
READ: Global COVID-19 cases exceed 3.5 million amid unreported fears
To arrive at their estimate, the researchers rated the city’s number of known COVID-19 deaths relative to the largest estimate of local people with a previous infection, as indicated by antibody blood test readings, and applied the rate of 0.37 percent to the country -total death.
They also found that about one in five of those infected showed no symptoms.
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