Wuhan, the original epicenter of the coronavirus, has made good on its promises to test all residents for Covid-19, finding a grand total of zero active cases.
The city launched its ambitious testing campaign on May 14 following the discovery of a small cluster of new cases in one suburban neighborhood that raised fears of a potential second wave of infections.
Originally labeled the “10-day grand battle,” the campaign ended up taking more like 18 days, which still isn’t too shabby for giving nucleic acid tests to 9.9 million people at a total cost of 900 million yuan ($126 million).
At a news conference on Tuesday, health officials announced that no new Covid-19 cases had been discovered in the city, though 300 “asymptomatic cases” had been found.
“Asymptomatic cases” are those people who test positive for the virus but exhibit no symptoms. China generally has not counted such cases in its official tallies.
Though you can still spread the virus to others while exhibiting no symptoms, Wuhan health officials said that none of these asymptomatic people had proven to be infectious — all 1,174 of their close contacts tested negative for the Covid-19 while lab studies on 106 different samples found the virus to be inactive.
Considering these results, Feng Zijian, the deputy director of China’s CDC, declared that Wuhan is now the “safest city” from the virus.
