Wuhan completes Covid testing of 11 million residents

Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan said they have completed citywide tests of more than 11 million people for Covid-19 after cases resurfaced more than a year after the coronavirus first emerged there.

The tests – which began on Tuesday – provide «essentially complete coverage» for all residents of the city except for children under six and students on their summer vacation, Wuhan senior official Li Tao said at a press conference. Run Xinhua.

By yesterday, the city had registered 37 local COVID-19 cases and found 41 asymptomatic local carriers in the latest round of mass testing, Xinhua reported.

City officials announced last week that seven locally transmitted infections were found among migrant workers in Wuhan, breaking a year-long streak without local cases after crushing an initial outbreak with an unprecedented lockdown in early 2020.

Authorities said they quickly mobilized more than 28,000 health workers at about 2,800 testing campaign sites.

China reduced local cases to almost zero after the coronavirus first appeared in the city in late 2019, allowing the economy to recover and life to largely return to normal.

However, the new outbreak has thrown that record at risk, with the rapidly spreading delta variant reaching dozens of cities after infection among airport cleaners in Nanjing caused a string of cases reported across the country.

Since then, China has restricted residents of entire cities to their homes, cut local transport links and carried out mass testing as it battled the outbreak, the largest in months.

The Chinese government has also tightened overseas travel restrictions for its citizens as part of efforts to contain the rising cases.

China’s immigration authority announced on Wednesday that it will stop issuing ordinary passports and other documents needed to leave the country in «non-essential and non-emergency» cases.

This does not yet mean a blanket ban on overseas travel for the Chinese public.