Meghalaya on Thursday announced that the state will consider everyone an asymptomatic carrier of the virus “by default", according to a news report by the Indian Express.

The Health and Family Welfare Department, Meghalaya says this is a proactive measure adopted to “prevent the threat of community transmission by acting as though community transmission is already happening”. The order noted that “80% of the positive cases of COVID-19 are asymptomatic and cannot be ascertained without testing. Therefore it would be apt to assume that everybody by default is an asymptomatic person.”

The state has so far recorded 33 cases of COVID-19, out of which 19 are active.

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