An employee at DiDi Chuxing sprays disinfectant in a DiDi driver's car on March 13 in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province. Photo: cnsphoto

East China's Zhejiang Province announced on Monday it would impose the same level of strict management on asymptomatic patients amid growing concerns over whether asymptomatic cases are being properly reported given their infectivity, which is considered a threat to China's prevention against a second wave of the outbreak. 

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang emphasized on Monday the need for enhanced COVID-19 prevention and control work, especially with asymptomatic patients.

As asymptomatic patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) pose a significant threat to the country's epidemic prevention and control work, Zhejiang decided to manage all the asymptomatic patients in the same way as for confirmed patients. Once the asymptomatic patients are found, they will be transferred to a designated hospital for 14-day mandatory medical observation, Chen Guangsheng, vice secretary general of Zhejiang Provincial government, said at a press conference on Monday. 

"Before they are discharged, they will also have to have two consecutive nucleic tests with negative results. After being dismissed from the hospitals, they will undergo another 14-day mandatory quarantine," Chen said. 

Some online users highly praised the latest move by Zhejiang, hoping that such measures designed for asymptomatic patients, who are seen as silent virus carriers, could be popularized in the whole country given the growing concerns over the infectivity of asymptomatic patients, which is almost the same as confirmed cases. In addition, more asymptomatic cases - those without clinical symptoms but with positive test results for COVID-19 - have been reported lately. 

A woman in Central China's Henan Province was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 on Saturday after coming into contact with an asymptomatic patient, sounding a further alarm for the public about the infectivity of asymptomatic cases while Chinese cities resume work activities.

A recent study showed the infectivity of asymptomatic patients could be nearly the same as confirmed cases. Scientists with the Ningbo Center for Disease Control and Prevention in East China's Zhejiang Province recently found that 6.3 percent of confirmed cases' close contacts were infected with the virus. The percentage for asymptomatic patients' close contacts was 4.4 percent. Such a difference is of no statistical significance.

No official data on the overall number of asymptomatic patients has been reported by the Chinese health authorities, and they are not counted as "confirmed cases," according to the Chinese National Health Commission.

Global Times