China on Wednesday reported 17 new confirmed coronavirus infections in the mainland for Nov. 3, down from 49 a day earlier, the health authority said, although asymptomatic cases surged.
Of the new confirmed infections, 15 were imported cases and the other two were locally transmitted infections in Kashgar in northwestern Xinjiang region, the National Health Commission said in a statement. The two Kashgar cases were previously asymptomatic.
China reported 128 new asymptomatic patients for Nov. 3, more than doubling from 61 a day earlier. Of the total, 12 were imported cases and 116 were new cases in Kashgar.
Kashgar launched its fourth round of mass testing on Wednesday, after completing three rounds since Oct. 27, unprecedented in China.
As of Nov. 3, Xinjiang had a total of 64 confirmed cases, all from Kashgar, and 345 asymptomatic cases, of which 330 were from Kashgar and 15 from neighbouring Kizilsu.
China does not classify symptomless patients as confirmed cases until they show clinical signs of infection such as a fever.
As of Nov. 3, mainland China had a total of 86,087 confirmed coronavirus cases, it said. The country's death toll from the coronavirus remained unchanged at 4,634.
(Reporting by Josh Horwitz and Wang Jing; Liangping Gao, Lusha Zhang and Ryan Woo in Beijing, Editing by Himani Sarkar)
