–Mainland China reports 26 new Covid-19 cases
BEIJING: The Chinese capital, Beijing, is capable of screening almost 1 million people a day for the novel coronavirus, an official said on Sunday, as testing continued across the city to try to contain the spread of a fresh outbreak.
Beijing has been expanding testing in the city of 20 million since a cluster of infections linked to a food wholesale market erupted over a week ago.
The outbreak, the first in Beijing in months, has now surpassed previous peak numbers in the city in early February.
Testing was initially focused on people who worked or shopped at the Xinfadi market or lived nearby but it has been expanded to include residents in many other parts of the city as well as food and parcel delivery workers.
Since the new outbreak, capacity has more than doubled to more than 230,000 tests daily at 124 institutions, Gao Xiaojun, spokesman for the Beijing Health Commission, told a press briefing.
The tests are done on samples collected from multiple people in one test tube, meaning the city can get results from almost 1 million people daily, he added.
The same pooling of samples was also carried out in Wuhan last month to quickly ramp up daily testing capacity after a cluster of new cases there raised worries about a second wave of infections.
Gao also said that provinces including Hubei and Liaoning had sent about 200 people to Beijing to boost staff in laboratories, further helping to increase testing capacity.
Meanwhile, mainland China reported on Sunday 26 new confirmed coronavirus cases for June 20, down from 27 a day earlier, driven largely by the latest outbreak of COVID-19 in the Chinese capital.
Of the new infections, 22 were in Beijing, the National Health Commission said in a statement, the same as a day earlier.
The city of more than 20 million people reported its first case in the latest wave on June 11. The resurgence has been linked to a wholesale food center in the southwest of Beijing. So far, 227 people in the city have been infected in the latest outbreak.
Mainland China reported six new asymptomatic cases, those who are infected with the coronavirus but show no symptoms, down from seven a day earlier. Beijing accounted for three of the new cases.
China does not count asymptomatic patients as confirmed cases and as part of the official infection tally.
To date, China has 83,378 confirmed cases. The first infections were traced to the Huanan seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December.
No new deaths were reported in mainland China for June 20.
