Worried about a potential second wave and following new infections when the containment was lifted in early April, the city of Wuhan launched a major screening. From May 14 to June 1, more than 9.8 million Chinese were tested in the metropolis, which has 11 million inhabitants, officials said at a press conference.
The assessment was announced by the authorities on Tuesday: only 300 were positive for the coronavirus. "The figures show that Wuhan is now a safe city," said Feng Zijian, deputy director of the Chinese National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
A 113 million euro campaign
The 300 positive results come from asymptomatic people, authorities said. However, China does not include them in its statistics on confirmed patients. The country has largely checked the epidemic on its territory and only reports a handful of new cases every day, mostly from Chinese travelers who have returned from abroad.
The screening campaign will have cost around 900 million yuan (113 million euros), deputy mayor Hu Yabo said on Tuesday.
4,634 official deaths
The new coronavirus appeared in the city at the end of 2019, causing a wave of contamination that flooded local hospitals with patients. But after a peak in February, new infections fell gradually in China.
The official toll in the country populated by 1.4 billion inhabitants remains frozen at 4,634 dead. The vast majority died in Wuhan, where a doctor died again on Tuesday, public television CCTV reported. The United States, however, questions the reliability of the figures and accuses China of having delayed sharing its information with the international community.
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