China's Wuhan completes citywide testing to curb COVID-19 resurgence

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a resident for COVID-19 nucleic acid testing at a residential community in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, Aug. 3, 2021. (Xinhua/Xiong Qi)

WUHAN, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The central Chinese city of Wuhan has completed a round of all-inclusive nucleic acid testing within five days to contain the latest COVID-19 resurgence, local authorities said Sunday.

More than 11.28 million residents in the megacity have been tested for the novel coronavirus during the citywide testing that started Tuesday, 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, according to Li.

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

By Saturday, Wuhan had registered 37 locally transmitted confirmed cases and 41 locally transmitted 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.

Chen Xiaoping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the results of Wuhan's citywide testing showed the city's latest COVID-19 outbreak has not caused large-scale spread of the virus.

Wuhan's mass testing helps curb the COVID-19 resurgence in the shortest possible time and ensure the safety of local residents, Chen said.

The city has set up more than 2,800 sampling sites and mobilized over 28,000 medical workers for the testing campaign, according to the municipal government.

Hit hard by COVID-19 in early 2020, Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, was the world's first megacity to complete a comprehensive nucleic acid testing campaign, testing nearly 10 million residents in 19 days at the height of the pandemic.

Hard hit by COVID-19 in early 2020, Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, was the world's first megacity to complete a comprehensive nucleic acid-testing campaign last year.

The city had not reported any locally transmitted COVID-19 infections for over a year.