Wuhan to test all residents for COVID-19 as local infections return

The Chinese city of Wuhan will test its entire population of 11 million for COVID-19 after reporting its first local infections in more than a year, authorities said on Tuesday.

News of the massive business in the city where COVID-19 first appeared comes a day after authorities there announced seven local coronavirus infections among migrant workers.

Wuhan “is quickly launching comprehensive nucleic acid tests on all residents,” senior official Li Tao said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Before Monday, the city had not reported any locally transmitted infections for more than a year.

China has reinstated strict restrictions amid the biggest coronavirus outbreak in months, forcing residents of some cities to stay at home and increasing testing.

Wuhan quelled its initial outbreak with an unprecedented lockdown in early 2020.

China reported its first official case of the coronavirus in December 2019, which was linked to a seafood market in Wuhan.

But doubt has been cast on the exact time and origin of the virus.

A report released on Monday by GOP representative Michael McCaul of the House Foreign Affairs Committee claimed that COVID-19 had leaked from the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology as early as September 2019.

With post wires