The study shows that the cases of coronavirus infection in Wuhan may be ten times higher than what has been reported

As many as half a million residents of the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic is believed to have originated may have contracted the virus, about 10 times the number initially recorded of confirmed cases.

to me a study Released late Monday by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention that covered more than 34,000 people in April, it was found that nearly 4.4 percent of people tested carried antibodies that fight the virus that causes COVID-19.

The presence of antibodies means that people have contracted the virus at some point in the past, and looking at the proportion, approximately 500,000 residents of Wuhan, which has a total population of 11 million, could have contracted the virus.

This is nearly 10 times the more than 50,000 confirmed cases reported by Chinese health authorities in mid-April.

As of Sunday, Wuhan had reported a total of 50,354 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to Wuhan Municipal Health Committee.

A study this week indicated that the infection rate in Wuhan was much higher than in other Chinese cities. For example, the survey found that only 0.44 percent of Hubei residents surveyed found they carried the antibodies.

to me CNNYanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the initial underreporting in Wuhan could be partly attributed to the chaos of the first months of the epidemic, as well as the failure to count asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.

Huang noted that underreporting is not an exclusive problem in Wuhan, where testing capacity has been limited and hospitals overwhelmed with a sudden increase in the number of patients as little is known about the virus in the first months.

However, the Chinese government has also faced scrutiny and criticism over the suspected lack of transparency about the severity of the virus.

On Monday, a citizen journalist Who was reported from Wuhan at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in China He was sentenced to four years in prison After he was found guilty of “inciting controversy and stirring up trouble,” according to multiple reports.

The Chinese government regularly uses the accusation against human rights activists and other dissidents.

Zhang Chan, 37, traveled to Wuhan in February and photographed hospitals, neighborhoods, and more as the city locked down during the initial COVID-19 outbreak. Its reports accused the government of failing to inform citizens about the reality of the epidemic.

The plaintiffs charged Zhang with “spreading large amounts of false information” and receiving international media interviews for “maliciously inflaming the Wuhan COVID-19 epidemic situation.” CNN reported.