Health officials in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where Covid-19 emerged at the end of last year, have started a 10-day screening effort to curb any new local epidemic by testing all of its citizens, according to the state-run Global Times newspaper.
Following an emergency notice that was issued on Monday, testing started on Wednesday; people who are classified as “high risk” will be tested first, according to the Global Times.
The city is home to around 11 million people.
Global Times cited a document from the health commission of Wuchang district, saying that “the testing period will last from Wednesday to May 20.”
District health authorities were advised to complete forms for residents, which show “personal information of residents, personal ID, phone numbers, address, whether they have tested before and if they belong to a “key cluster,” according to the Global Times.
Wuhan health authorities announced on Tuesday that all city residents would be targeted for large-scale testing, following the detection of six new cases in a local residential community last weekend. Priority for testing will be given to key groups and older communities with dense and fluid populations.
Wuchang district health authorities told Global Times that they have set up both indoor and outdoor sites for testing, and are asking each community to keep organized and avoid gatherings, with different time slots for testing.
Global Times reported that since Tuesday, around 70,000 people in Wuhan had undergone nucleic acid tests.
