Shanghai will ask all 26 million residents to take another round of COVID-19 tests, a city official said on Wednesday, adding that lockdown curbs would continue until the exercise is complete.
Residents were seen standing in lines at COVID-19 test sites set up within residential compounds on Wednesday, waiting to take nucleic acid tests. Others will be asked to self-test using antigen tests, according to city officials.
Chinese authorities on Tuesday extended a lockdown in Shanghai to cover all of the financial center’s 26 million people, despite growing anger over quarantine rules in the city, where the latest results show only 268 symptomatic daily COVID-19 cases.
In a major test of China’s zero-tolerance strategy to eliminate the novel coronavirus, the government widened the lockdown to eastern parts of the city and extended until further notice restrictions in western districts, which had been due to expire on Tuesday.
The broader lockdown came after testing saw asymptomatic COVID-19 cases surge to more than 13 000.
Symptomatic cases fell on Monday to 268, from 425 the previous day.
