BEIJING: China has reported 21 new COVID-19 infections, including 13 asymptomatic ones, taking the number of cases in the country to 82,941, health authorities said on Saturday, as Wuhan city, where the outbreak originated, ramped up efforts for the mass testing of its 11 million residents.
Altogether, 4,633 people have died of the disease so far in China.
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said that of the eight new confirmed COVID-19 cases reported on Friday, six were imported infections.
The other two cases are both domestically transmitted and reported in Jilin Province, which recently went into lockdown mode after reporting a cluster of cases, it said.
But the numbers of asymptomatic cases continued to increase as 13 more cases were reported on Friday. The NHC said that 561 asymptomatic cases, including 30 from overseas, were still under medical observation.
Asymptomatic cases are a problem as the patients are tested COVID-19 positive but develop no symptoms such as fever, cough or sore throat. However, they pose a risk of spreading the disease to others.
The central Hubei province and its capital Wuhan, where the COVID-19 originated late last year, reported 439 asymptomatic cases till Friday, prompting Chinese officials to resort to mass testing of 11 million residents of the city beginning from Wednesday.
Hubei health commission said on Saturday that a total of 2,83,405 close contacts of COVID-19 patients in the province had been tracked by Friday, 763 of whom were still under medical observation.
By Friday, death toll from the virus in the province stood at 4,512, including 3,869 in Wuhan.
Hubei had so far reported 68,134 confirmed COVID-19 cases in total, including 50,339 in Wuhan.
As of Friday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 82,941, including 89 patients who were still being treated, and 78,219 people who had been discharged after recovery, the NHC said.
Read more: Wuhan tested almost a third of residents for coronavirus since April
