The city of Harbin in northern China has become the latest hotspot after a woman reportedly infected 70 others even though she had tested negative for Covid-19.
A 22-year-old student surnamed Han had returned to China from New York last month.
She had gone through a 14-day quarantine and showed no symptoms of the virus.
But Harbin health authorities believe she was a «silent carrier» who infected her neighbours, who then hosted a gathering where the bug was transmitted.
One of the guests was later taken to hospital with a stroke, which then led to the infection breaking out at two local hospitals, reports Shanghaiist.
COVID CLUSTER
Now 70 people, including patients in Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province, have tested positive.
Harbin itself has reported 52 active confirmed cases and 23 asymptomatic infections.
It comes as a study revealed China could have had more than 230,000 cases of coronavirus – almost five times the official figures.
The report, by the Hong Kong University’s school of public health and published in the British medical journal The Lancet, focused on the World Health Organisation’s evidence from China.
It concluded the true number of those infected would have been far greater if the definition of a coronavirus case that was later used as the standard across the world, had been applied from the outset.
China recorded 55,000 cases as of February 20. That has now risen to 83,000.
The country’s national health commission issued seven versions of a case definition for Covid-19 between January 15 and March 3.
The Hong Kong study found these changes had a «substantial effect» on how many infections were detected.
