At least half of Singapore’s newly discovered coronavirus cases show no symptoms, the co-head of the government’s virus taskforce told Reuters, reinforcing the city-state’s decision to ease lockdown restrictions very gradually.

“Based on our experience, for every symptomatic case you would have at least one asymptomatic case,” said Lawrence Wong, adding that the discovery was made in recent weeks as Singapore ramped up testing.

Singapore has one of the highest infection tallies in Asia, with more than 38,000 cases, because of outbreaks in cramped dormitories housing thousands of migrant workers.

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