The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in China may in fact have been four times higher than reported, according to a study conducted by researchers at Hong Kong University’s school of public health.
According to the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, as of February 20, China had reported 55,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, but had Chinese authorities used a case definition adopted later in the outbreak, the number of number of confirmed cases by that date would have been as much as 232,000.
The researchers go on to say that even that figure would be an underestimate of the number of infections up to that point, because it would not have captured some mild or asymptomatic cases.
China has currently reported 82,798 confirmed cases and 4,632 deaths.
Chinese medical workers attend to a patient at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan in central Hubei Province, January 24, 2020. (Xiong Qi/Xinhua via AP)
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