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People line up outside a makeshift nucleic acid testing site during a mass Covid-19 detection programme in Haidian district of Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:39pm, 27 Apr 2022Updated: 10:33pm, 27 Apr 2022

Only a dozen positive samples were found in Beijing’s first round of mass Covid-19 testing involving nearly 20 million people, a health official has said.

The Chinese capital has been on high alert against the pandemic as it prepares to host a key Communist Party meeting in autumn expected to feature a major leadership reshuffle and a third term in office for Xi Jinping.

A sudden spike in cases over the weekend prompted the launch of a three-round testing programme in its biggest district on Monday, which was then expanded across most of the city as a precaution.

Only 12 samples returned positive results, according to Li Ang, deputy director of Beijing’s health commission. Three of those came from a “temporary control area” – sealed off after the detection of early cases. The rest were from non-control areas in five districts.

By Wednesday afternoon, Beijing had identified 138 local infections since the outbreak began last Friday. About a third of them involved children, according to Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.