As the United States reported a record 77,255 new cases of the coronavirus Thursday, a leading health official warns that it's the people without symptoms who may be the main spreaders of the disease. Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human services, said that we have to "cast a wide net" and test asymptomatic people, particularly young adults.

According to CNBC, Giroir said that the U.S. needs to allow asymptomatic people to be tested while restricting testing for those who have had the disease and want to be retested.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged young people not to take the disease lightly in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Thursday.

"You have to have responsibility for yourself but also a social responsibility that you're getting infected is not just you in a vacuum. You're propagating the pandemic," he said.

Fauci added that people who don't have symptoms carry as much virus load as those who are symptomatic.

"When you measure the level of virus in the nasal pharynx of asymptomatic people, compared to people who are symptomatic, there doesn't seem to be any difference, which mean there's as much virus in the nose of a person who is asymptomatic as there is an a symptomatic person," Fauci said.

Recently, Chinese researchers discovered that "asymptomatic COVID-19 patients contaminated their surroundings and therefore imposed risks for other people."

They published their findings in the journal mSphere.