Wuhan COVID-19 Cases Could Be Ten Times More Than Reported: Study

Hong Kong: The real scale of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan may actually have been about 10 times more than what was reported, China’s health study said.

A serological survey of more than 34,000 people conducted by Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in April showed that about 4.4 per cent of those tested were found to have antibodies for COVID-19. The data was released on Monday.

Those figures suggest out of 11 million people, around 5 lakh could have been infected. This number is ten times the 50,000 cases China has officially reported.

China has been criticized for underreporting cases and not acting promptly initially.

The China CDC survey shows antibodies were found in just 0.44 per cent for the broader Hubei province. The study suggests most of the infections were contained in Wuhan, which was shut down for months.

The survey also says that only two people tested positive for antibodies among the 12,000 surveyed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and three other places.

In Spain and Switzerland, the antibody positivity rate was 6.2 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.