BEIJING — China has been attaching equal attention to both asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and other confirmed cases, a health official said on May 15.

Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the National Health Commission, said at a news conference that such cases have been placed under proper isolation and strict medical observation measures.

Zeng said such asymptomatic cases included those who have been infected but have no symptoms at all or very mild symptoms.

There are also people whose disease is in the incubation period and may develop relevant symptoms later.

"It is neither proper to put these cases under the category of confirmed cases, nor silent infections, so we use the term asymptomatic case to facilitate our management of them," Zeng said.

However, Zeng stressed the implementation of equally strict measures for such cases regarding both the information disclosure of such cases in the commission's daily reports and their management.