The Chinese city of Wuhan will test its entire population of 11 million for COVID-19 after reporting its first local infections in over a year, authorities said Tuesday.
News of the massive undertaking in the city where COVID-19 first emerged comes a day after officials there announced seven local coronavirus infections among migrant workers.
Wuhan is “swiftly launching comprehensive nucleic acid testing of all residents”, senior official Li Tao said at a press conference on Tuesday.
Before Monday, the city had not reported any locally transmitted infections in more than a year.
China has reinstated strict restrictions amid the largest coronavirus outbreak in months, forcing residents in certain cities to stay home and increasing testing.
Wuhan snuffed its initial outbreak with an unprecedented lockdown in early 2020.
A man being tested for COVID-19 reacts as a medical worker takes a swab sample in Wuhan.AFP via Getty Images
A staffer in Wuhan works in the pop-up Huoyan Laboratory specialized in the nucleic acid test for COVID-19.EPA
China reported its first official coronavirus case in December 2019, which was linked to a seafood market in Wuhan.
But doubt has been cast on the exact timing and origin of the virus.
A report released Monday by GOP Rep. Michael McCaul of the House Foreign Affairs Committee claimed COVID-19 leaked from the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as September 2019.
With Post wires
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