Wuhan completes testing to curb Covid resurgence

Wuhan: Authorities in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province where the pandemic originated in 2019, have completed a round of all-inclusive nucleic acid testing in five days to contain the latest Covid-19 resurgence, officials said.

More than 11.28 million residents have been tested for the novel coronavirus during the citywide testing that began on August 3, Li Tao, deputy secretary-general of the Wuhan municipal government, told a press conference on Sunday.

This means a “basically full coverage” of all residents in Wuhan, except for children under six and university students away on summer vacation, Xinhua news agency quoted Li as saying.

The mass testing was launched after new locally transmitted infections emerged among several migrant workers on August 2.

By August 7, Wuhan had registered 37 locally transmitted confirmed cases and 41 asymptomatic carriers in the latest outbreak.

Peng Houpeng, deputy director of the municipal health commission, said nine of the infections were found in the mass screening of residential compounds under closed-off management, while the other cases were found among quarantined close contacts.

Last year, Wuhan completed a comprehensive nucleic acid testing campaign, during which it tested nearly 10 million residents in 19 daysThe city had not reported any locally transmitted Covid-19 infections for over a year until this latest outbreak.