The tests are planned to be completed in a span of ten days.
Wuhan will carry out 11 million new Coronavirus tests after six new positive cases emerged in the city. These are the first positive cases for COVID-19 since the lockdown was lifted weeks earlier.
According to a state owned media outlet, the city authorities have inquired from all district antivirus teams about their plans on testing residents in their respective areas. No information about the availability of test kits as such a large scale was provided.
The tests are planned to be completed in a span of ten days with people living in densely populated buildings and older compounds to be given priority. People who frequently travel will also be screened at the earliest.
The new cases were all found in a single residential compound. An 89 year old, who did not travel since January, tested positive for the virus on May 9. Another five residents of the same compound also tested positive. Earlier, there were 20 coronavirus patients from the same place.
The city of approximately 11 million residents was the first one to discover the novel coronavirus. Wuhan thus far has reported 3,869 deaths in connection to the virus. People have been discouraged to leave their homes without genuine need. Checks like community workers taking temperatures and scanning people’s “health codes” on their cell phones as they enter or leave a compound have been in place. Measures, though, have varied between the various districts in the city.
Chinese government is being cautious against a possible second wave of coronavirus. Shulan, a small city in the Jilin province, recently reported 13 locally transmitted cases and is under partial lockdown since May 9. Nonessential travel has been banned for nearly 630,000 residents of Shulan.
Some other parts of the country are also facing similar lockdowns due to the emergence of a small number of new cases, some of them imported from other countries.