Daily COVID Testing & Mass Disinfection of 13,000 Areas!

Source: Global Times

The city of Beijing will conduct another three rounds of mass testing in 11 major administrative districts and the Yizhuang economic development zone in the three days starting Tuesday, to curb the spread of COVID-19 as epidemic control in the Chinese capital remains at a critical stage.

Li Ang, a spokesperson from the Beijing Health Commission, announced the above decision at a press conference on Monday. He said that since April 25, the city has carried out several rounds of nucleic acid screening, which has played an important role in detecting hot spots, controlling risks, and blocking the spread of the epidemic.

Beijing, which has already conducted three rounds of testing in COVID-hit regions from April 25 to 29 and in major districts like Chaoyang and Haidian, reported 50 infections on Monday, including 41 confirmed cases and nine silent carries, according to the Beijing Health Commission.

Since April 22, Beijing has recorded a total of 400 COVID-19 cases in 14 districts, including 156 in Chaoyang district and 103 in Fangshan district, the health authority said.

Mass Disinfection of 13,000 Residential Compounds

As part of achieving the goal of eliminating the COVID-19 cases at the community level, Shanghai is carrying out citywide cleaning and disinfection covering 13,000 residential compounds in the city, local authority said on Monday, noting that nearly 1 million delivery packages are being disinfected every day.

Cleaning and disinfection are one of the 10 key tasks of anti-epidemic fight in Shanghai as curbing community transmission has entered a critical stage, Liu Duo, deputy mayor of Shanghai, said at a press conference on Monday. The effective disinfection and sterilization could play a positive role in cutting off the transmission routes, and now over 6,000 professionals are engaged in the citywide disinfection work.

Shanghai discovered 7,333 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with 727 confirmed cases and 6,606 asymptomatic patients. The city's locally transmitted COVID cases had decreased for three consecutive days.

Residential compounds especially where patients lived and public places including construction sites, office buildings, supermarkets and shopping malls as well as schools are also the major focus of the disinfection work, according to the authorities. The disinfection work involves 160,000 personnel every day, covering about 140 million square meters and 13,000 residential compounds. And nearly 1 million packages are being disinfected every day, local authorities said.

The risk of COVID-19 community transmission in Shanghai has been effectively contained and six districts, including Fengxian, Jinshan and Chongming, have basically realized no community transmissions, Shanghai local government said on Sunday, amid the easing of restriction for more than 15 million residents.

Liu told the press conference on Monday that the overall epidemic situation in Shanghai has been seeing positive signs as the situation has been stabilized, and the elimination of COVID-19 cases at community level has entered a critical stage.