Read on Twitter
There has been a recent development in how #COVID19 cases are being tracked in #CentralAsia, which changes the picture of the pandemic in the region. So, 
From today, 2nd August, the government of Kazakhstan is now publishing combined data on infections and deaths from both patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 and those who test negative but have COVID-19-like pneumonia symptoms https://twitter.com/Vlastkz/status/1289783778785861632
Kyrgyzstan has been following the same practice since 17th July https://twitter.com/EurasiaNet/status/1284141558346981376?s=20
You probably remember around 9th-10th July a rumour circulated that the spike in pneumonia cases in Kazakhstan was being caused by some new virus, a rumour quickly denied by the Kazakhstani government https://twitter.com/balalaichnitsa/status/1281386246837805057
WHO declared that those pneumonia cases were likely undiagnosed COVID-19 https://twitter.com/balalaichnitsa/status/1282100011766079489?s=20
Two weeks ago, the WHO decided to send a team to investigate that pneumonia spike anyway, but seemingly more as a “just in case” measure as those cases are most likely COVID-19 (I haven’t seen any further news on that mission) https://twitter.com/ChrisRickleton/status/1282957664180477959?s=20
We know that patients can test negative for COVID-19 for various reasons, so combining confirmed cases with probable cases (especially severe cases such as pneumonia) make sense, and should give a better picture of the current state of the pandemic here
So what does combining the statistics do to the numbers? Unsurprisingly, they go up, to 6,407 new cases a day, perhaps as many as 300,000 infected overall during the pandemic https://twitter.com/joannalillis/status/1289849515160162304
I am a medical humanities specialist, not a biomedical specialist, but the proportion of pneumonia cases to COVID-19 cases seems high given that, globally, milder cases outnumber more severe cases that have symptoms like pneumonia
Some research from China has put the percentage of mild cases as high as 80%, but we know the demographics of cases vary from region to region https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/asia/coronavirus-treament-recovery.html
The new statistics have also led to questions over the official death count, which seems low given the number and proportion of severe cases https://twitter.com/joannalillis/status/1289850937880666114?s=20
So the picture on day 1 of the new statistics in Kazakhstan is that there are more cases than it seemed, and there appears to be a high proportion of severe cases but a low number of deaths.
That picture may change as analysts have more time with the new data. This is a development to watch.
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