1 in 3 infected were 'silent carriers' of COVID-19

Beijing, Mar 24: In a worrying trend, a Chinese government data has suggested that nearly 1 out of every three people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in the country was an asymptomatic carrier of the virus "silent carriers" who show no symptom of the disease such as fever or cough.

More than 43,000 people in China had tested positive for Covid-19 by the end of February but had no immediate symptoms, classified Chinese government documents show, reports South China Morning Post.

Also, a research by a group of Japanese scientists led by Hiroshi Nishiura, an epidemiologist at Hokkaido University, has found that nearly 30.8% who tested positive after evacuation from Wuhan were asymptomatic.

In South Korea, where wide-scale testing (nearly 300,000) was conducted, 20% of positive cases were asymptomatic.