Although released in November, a study out of China’s Wuhan district that only recently came to light given the two countries’ suppressive media efforts suggested that they had found no evidence to support asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus.
Like much of the virus information coming from China, the report should be evaluated with extreme caution. However, the massive numbers involved would indicate that—if accurate—it could profoundly change the COVID narrative used to justify authoritarian lockdowns and other restrictive efforts.
Meanwhile, if the report is not to be believed, it would force many who have denied China’s propensity for disinformation to finally acknowledge the CCP’s propaganda problem.
The study, published Nov. 20 in the journal Nature Communications, was backed by 19 scientists, most hailing from Wuhan’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology. However, some also came from Australia and the United Kingdom, LifeSiteNews reported.
The study—a state-implemented “nucleic acid screening program” that occurred between May 14 and June 1—examined nearly 93 percent of the district’s residence, it reported. In total, the number came to 9,899,828 participants.
It came only weeks after the country began to relax its “[s]tringent COVID-19 control measures,” a lockdown that occurred from Jan. 23 to April 8, according to the report.
Although similar US measures, particularly those in Democrat-run states, failed to fully contain the pandemic, Wuhan reported that its 11-week lock-down all but obliterated the virus from its original epicenter, resulting in roughly three cases per 100,000 residents.
“No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases … were identified,” the report’s abstract said.
Moreover, “[t]here were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases.”
In other words, the nearly 1,200 who came into direct contact with the 300 asymptomatic carriers offered no evidence of transmission.
“The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown,” it said.
The paper also reported very few signs of prior recovered cases who appeared to re-catch the virus, with only one in every 321 cases retesting positive.
It is unclear whether one might conclude that the recovered patients had developed antibodies, helping lead the way to herd immunity.
Yet, other aspects of the study, such as its breakdown of the occupations of asymptomatic positive cases, suggested there may be some red flags in the research.
It said that the largest portions of those who were asymptomatic appeared to come from the elderly and those who were unemployed.
By contrast, several essential fields—including transportation, teachers and medical staff—collectively comprised only 4% of the asymptomatic cases that screened positive.
The study failed to note whether mitigating factors—such as death in symptomatic cases—may have influenced the results.
Either way, Wuhan’s official report trumpeting the success of its own lockdowns puts many on the Left in a quandary.
On one hand, they have sought to actively lay cover for China, and it is believed that several members of Congress and countless companies have likely been compromised by the Asian superpower.
On the other hand, despite the arrival of several promising vaccines, courtesy of President Donald Trump, many of those who stood to gain the most from the fearmongering that ensued have been reluctant to relent.
So-called health experts and blue-state politicians have insisted that mask-wearing must be mandatory even after receiving the vaccine, claiming there may yet be a possibility of transmission.
Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has progressively raised the rate at which herd immunity would be present in the population, going from about 70% to 90% in his more recent television appearances.
Fauci and others also have hyped the possibility that a mutated virus may be impervious to the vaccines, although the head of British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca has promised that its soon-to-be-approved offering will cover both the initial strain and any mutated varieties.
It is widely assumed that media fearmongering about the virus will evaporate should Democrats regain control of the White House in January, as was the case when the media under-reported and downplayed threats from the H1N1 “swine flu” during the early years of the Obama administration.
Unlike the coronavirus, the swine flu specifically targeted younger populations. However, no schools were shut down as a result.
Ron Klain, the former chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden and incoming chief of staff for the presumptive president, admitted in 2019 that the administration’s handling of the swine flu amounted to pure luck.
“It is purely a fortuity that this isn’t one of the great mass casualty events in American history,” Klain said.
“It had nothing to do with us doing anything right. It just had to do with luck,” he continued. “If anyone thinks that this can’t happen again, they don’t have to go back to 1918, they just have to go back to 2009, 2010 and imagine a virus with a different lethality, and you can just do the math on that.”
