Wuhan Tests All Residents as Delta Variant Rages Where Pandemic Began

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WEDNESDAY, Aug. 4, 2021 (HealthDay News)

All 11 million residents of the city of Wuhan will be tested for COVID-19 after three locally transmitted cases were reported in the city on Monday, Chinese officials said Tuesday.

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan in 2019.

"To ensure that everyone in the city is safe, city-wide nucleic acid testing will be quickly launched for all people to fully screen out positive results and asymptomatic infections," Wuhan official Li Qiang said at a news briefing, according to Reuters, CBS News reported.

China is using mass testing and lockdowns to battle its largest COVID-19 outbreak in months. Over the last 10 days, 300 cases have been detected in at least 15 provinces. The surge — first detected among airport workers in Nanjing — is being fueled by the more contagious Delta variant along with domestic travel, according to officials.

Domestic flights into the cities of Nanjing and Yangzhou were canceled, and long distance trains into Beijing from over 23 stations were suspended. Nanjing's 9.2 million residents have been mass-tested three times, CBS News reported.

Over 1 billion people have reportedly received doses of a coronavirus vaccine in China, but the only vaccines being distributed there are Chinese-made ones, which authorities have said are less effective against new variants, the Associated Press reported.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on COVID variants.

SOURCE: CBS News

Robert Preidt