Coronavirus: Beijing doubles testing capacity as Pepsi plant closes due to confirmed cases
- All of the city’s 124 nucleic acid testing institutes now fully operational, with each capable of processing 230,000 samples a day
- Combined detection allows 1 million people to be tested every day, health authorities say
All of the city’s 124 nucleic acid testing institutes are now fully operational and each is capable of processing 230,000 samples a day, up from 100,000 about a fortnight ago, the municipal health bureau said on Sunday.
“If we do combined detection with five mixed samples at a time, we can test a million people a day,” spokesman Gao Xiaojun said.
China’s ability to process huge numbers of samples was exemplified last month when authorities in Wuhan tested 10 million residents in the second half of May.
In Beijing, almost 2.3 million people – about 10 per cent of the city’s population – were tested for Covid-19 between June 13 and Friday, the municipal government said. The samples were collected by close to 7,500 medical workers at 2,100 sites.