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Almost half a million people in Wuhan could have been infected with the coronavirus: the number of officially confirmed cases for Sunday would be almost ten times higher than previously reported.
So far, 50,354 confirmed cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Wuhan. But in reality there could be around 480,000 cases. The new findings are based on a study conducted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). To do this, blood serum samples were evaluated one month after China contained the pandemic.
Estimated sample infection rates
For the study, samples from 34,000 people from the general population in Wuhan and other areas were used to estimate rates of Covid 19 infection. The researchers found an antibody prevalence (incidence) rate of 4.43 percent for Covid- 19 among Wuhan residents. By April, about ten times more people had been infected than was reported.
However, the study also shows that the frequency of infections outside of Wuhan in Hube province is significantly lower. Antibodies against the coronavirus were only 0.44 percent. Outside of Hubei province there are even fewer: out of 12,000 people tested, only two of them had antibodies.
Chaos as a reason for not reporting
Yanzhong Huang, a senior global health official at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the study highlights the problem of very few cases recorded during the height of the pandemic in Wuhan. He sees the chaos at the moment as the reason for this, but also the mistake of not including asymptomatic cases in the recording.
In January and February, fever patients flooded hospitals. Due to a lack of personnel, infrastructure and medical resources, many were sent home and instructed to self-isolate. As a result, the patients infected their families or died at home without being included in the official statistics.
The problem runs deeper
But the problem goes further: the announced data was more optimistic than that to which the agents had access. Since February 12, Hubei health authorities have included “clinically diagnosed cases” in the count of confirmed infections. On February 12, 13,000 more cases were added. As a result, the daily number of infections increased ninefold from one day to the next.
Documents released by the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention show: Authorities had reported “clinically diagnosed cases” internally before February 12, but did not publish them. The documents were delivered to “CNN” by a whistleblower. (my I)
