No new positive cases after 10m tested in Qingdao
Print Edition
OVER 10.4 million samples had been collected in Qingdao City, east China’s Shandong Province, as of 3:30pm yesterday, as the city’s five-day nucleic acid testing campaign nears its end.
With more than 8.84 million samples tested, no new positive cases have been found except the confirmed and asymptomatic cases already reported, a local official said yesterday.
The coastal city has vowed to complete a citywide nucleic acid testing campaign covering all 11 million residents within five days starting Monday.
The virus, which recently re-emerged, has led to the discovery of 13 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 by Wednesday. Most of the new cases are linked to the Qingdao Chest Hospital, which had been used to treat imported COVID-19 cases.
The latest case involved a dock worker who had earlier tested positive for the virus but only developed symptoms after about 20 days, the city said.
Starting from 7am on Monday, the residents of a community in Qingdao’s Shinan District began to line up at a testing point to receive nucleic acid testing.
“We waited about 20 minutes before being tested. It was a responsible move for the good of ourselves and for others as well,” said a local resident surnamed Wang.
The city has set up more than 4,000 sample collecting points across the city, most of which are open between 6am and midnight. More than 10,000 medical workers have been mobilized.
“Hello. Just open your mouth wide and don’t be scared,” said Su Miao, a 42-year-old doctor while squatting to collect a child’s sample with a throat swab. “Children can get nervous and we must comfort them to make sure we get the samples as soon as possible,” she said.
Du Xiaoxuan, a nurse dispatched from Zibo City, about 270km away from Qingdao, arrived in Qingdao at noon on Tuesday and collected more than 200 samples with two colleagues on their day of arrival.
“China has controlled the epidemic well. This is a hard-won achievement that we must safeguard,” said Du.
To ensure the citywide testing can be completed in five days, five cities in Shandong Province, including Zibo, Yantai and Rizhao, have joined hands with Qingdao to help conduct nucleic acid sampling and testing, and more than 1,200 people have been dispatched from outside to the city for assistance, said Chen Wansheng, an official with Qingdao government.
Some of the samples from Qingdao were transported to the five neighboring cities for testing, as Qingdao has limited equipment and the samples must be tested within 12 hours, said Zhao Guolei, deputy director of the municipal health commission.
Some communities have called in medics to provide door-to-door sampling for old people with restricted mobility.
A 10-in-1 mixed testing approach has been adopted to improve efficiency, according to Zhang Huaqiang with the municipal center for disease prevention and control.
“If a 10-in-1 sample is positive, we will inform the 10 people to undergo separate isolation and testings to further identify the carrier of the positive sample,” said Zhang.
Chinese biotech company BGI Group upgraded its COVID-19 nucleic acid test laboratory named Huoyan, or Fire Eye, in Qingdao on Wednesday. The company installed another 88 extracting and testing instruments in the laboratory, bringing the maximum daily testing capability from 2,000 to 40,000 tubes.
With the 10-in-1 approach, the lab alone can test samples of 400,000 residents a day, according to the company.
The re-emergence is not an autumn-and-winter outbreak and has no obvious link with the National Day holiday, said Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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