Within a month of confirming its first case of Covid-19 on January 20, South Korea had tested nearly 8,000 people suspected of infection with the new coronavirus that causes the disease. A little over a week later, that number had soared to 82,000 as health officials mobilised to carry out as many 10,000 tests each day.
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If we can test more people – whether they have no symptoms, mild or severe disease – the results, including the case fatality rate, are more accurate and representative when the whole disease spectrum is taken into consideration,” said David Hui Shu-cheong, an expert in respiratory medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Most countries just focus on testing the hospitalised patients who obviously have more severe disease, and [thus] the fatality rate is high.”
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In a study released last month, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention said the mortality rate among people whose symptoms started between January 1 and January 10 was 15.6 per cent, compared to just 0.8 per cent among those who showed symptoms between February 1 and February 11 – a possible indication that increased screening as awareness of the virus grew had detected more mild cases of infection
