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The coastal city will test all nine million residents for the next five days with some areas blocked.
Authorities in Qingdao, China, said on Monday they would test the city’s entire population of more than 9 million people for COVID-19 over the next five days, after new cases emerged linked to a hospital treating to people who had been confirmed with the disease after returning from overseas.
The coastal city, nearly 700 kilometers (435 miles) southeast of Beijing, reported six new COVID-19 cases and six asymptomatic cases as of the end of October 11, with most of the cases linked to the Qingdao Chest Hospital. .
China has extensive rapid testing capacity, and the health commission said more than 140,000 employees of “medical institutions, patients and newly admitted staff” had been tested in Qingdao since the cases were confirmed.
After the announcement, the National Health Commission (NHC) said mainland China had 21 confirmed COVID-19 cases on October 11. The report did not include any confirmed infections in Qingdao, but it was not immediately clear why.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not count as confirmed cases, rose to 32 from 23 the day before, the NHC said. It did not offer a breakdown of where the new asymptomatic cases were reported, although it said 29 of these cases involved people returning from abroad.
The coronavirus first emerged in the central city of Wuhan late last year, and the city and surrounding province of Hubei were closed after cases spiked towards the end of January.
China has since recovered and daily COVID-19 cases have fallen dramatically from those peaks, but the country remains on high alert.
In June, large areas of Beijing were subjected to massive testing after the capital, which is home to more than 20 million people, detected cases of viruses linked to a food market.
Qingdao has already closed the Qingdao chest hospital, as well as the emergency department of its central hospital. The buildings where those diagnosed with the disease live have also been sealed as part of the containment measures of the authorities.
China is also eager to be the first to launch a coronavirus vaccine, with several companies in end-stage trials. Although unproven, the vaccines have already been administered to hundreds of thousands of key workers and soldiers.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China now stands at 85,578, while the death toll was unchanged at 4,634.
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