China's Wuhan city achieves big milestone in fight against coronavirus

Health authorities in China on Monday reported 32 new coronavirus cases in the country among which were 16 asymptomatic infections. The National Health Commission (NHC) in their statement said that a total of sixteen imported cases were reported on Sunday among which eleven from the Sichuan Province, three in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region while two were detected in Guangdong Province. The NHC further stated that the country's total number of people currently placed under medical observation after Sunday's sixteen asymptomatic cases has gone up to 397. Despite no new asymptomatic case being reported from Wuhan city, 320 people are still under quarantine.

Chinese health authorities had achieved a major milestone as 60,000 people were tested on Wuhan on Sunday as part of its drive to test the city's entire 11 million population for the virus. The big first mark of success, however, came when no new asymptomatic cases were found on Sunday and as many as about only 200 asymptomatic infections have been detected in the city in the past two weeks.

Asymptomatic cases refer to individuals who tested positive for the COVID-19 infection, but display no symptoms such as fever, sore throat or a cough. Despite this, they could still pose the risk of infecting others with the disease. The NHC on Sunday added that the death toll in China due to the novel coronavirus remains at 4,364 and the overall cases confirmed to date in the country's mainland has gone up to 83,017 among whom are 76 patients who are still undergoing treatment while 78,307 individuals have recovered.