The epicenter of the novel coronavirus, Wuhan, claimed that the administration has tested over 7 million people in the last 12 days. With that, it said that it has concluded its campaign of testing its entire population as the fears of second wave increased in the city.
The local health administration conducted the nucleic acid test of 6.68 million people out of which only 206 were confirmed positive. As per the Bloomberg calculations that is based on the numbers released by the local health administration, all the 206 were asymptomatic.
The campaign to test every citizen of Wuhan is China’s attempts to minimize the return of the coronavirus outbreak. This is done to prevent further economic damage as the World’s second-largest economy shut down almost all of its economic activities in order to contain the spread of the virus. The country found new cluster of cases in its northeast region which forced the officials to lockdown 100 million of its residents.
1.1 million tests in one single day
The campaign was announced on the 12th of May following the emergence of new infections in the city after the relaxation of the 76-day lockdown. As the days went by, the pace of the testing too ramped up as it reached over 1.1 million tests on the 23rd of May alone. This was almost 26 times more tests conducted than the first day.
At a meeting with the representatives of the Hubei province whose capital is Wuhan, President Xi Jinping has reportedly stressed the need to get the situation under control in order to ‘not ruin the hard-won achievement’. As the National People’s Congress of the year is approaching, the nation’s top leaders are striving to project an image of stability and calmness.
The companies in Wuhan had also taken up the initiative upon themselves to test all their employees before they were allowed to resume work in order to reduce the risk of the second wave of the onslaught of the coronavirus.
According to Bloomberg, China has also taken up a serological survey to determine the true impact of the outbreak. The survey includes taking blood samples from a representative group of people to see if they generated immunities to fight the virus.
Source: Hindustan Times
