Coronavirus 2.0? China may test all 11 mn Wuhan residents in next 10 days

The short order came after the discovery last weekend of a cluster of six infected people at a residential compound in the city, the first new cases in more than a month

The Chinese authorities are planning to test all 11 million residents of Wuhan, the city where the coronavirus pandemic first broke out. No official announcement has been made, but district officials confirmed receiving marching orders from the city’s coronavirus task force, news agency PTI reported. It remained unclear if and how such a monumental testing campaign would happen. The short order came after the discovery last weekend of a cluster of six infected people at a residential compound in the city, the first new cases in more than a month.

China has moved quickly to snuff out new outbreaks wherever they pop up, even as it relaxes restrictions on the movement of people and reopens public attractions to limited numbers of visitors. Jilin province, which borders North Korea in China’s northeast, has suspended all public transport and imposed other restrictions as it battles a fresh outbreak. In neighbouring Heilongjiang province, which dealt with its own outbreak recently, the city of Harbin is quarantining anyone coming from Jilin for 14 days and banning them from hotels.

The sudden order appeared to confuse local officials. A man who answered the mayor’s hotline in Wuhan said that districts have 10 days to arrange the testing in their respective jurisdictions. But a woman who answered later Wednesday said the tests must be done in the next 10 days.A major state-owned news website, Jiemian, said it had obtained an implementation plan for the city’s Wuchang district that said all residents should be tested by May 20.

'184 countries going through hell': Trump faults China for Covid-19 spread

The US is considering coronavirus scanning of air travellers from countries hit hard by the virus, says President Trump

US President Donald Trump doubled down on China for failing to tame the coronavirus at its very origin, saying it has led to 184 countries “going through hell”, as several American lawmakers demanded steps to reduce dependence on Beijing for manufacturing and minerals.

Trump has been publicly blaming China for the global spread of the “invisible enemy” and launched an investigation against it. He has also indicated that the US may be looking at “a lot more money” in damages from China than the $140 billion being sought by Germany from Beijing for the pandemic. Leaders of the US, the UK and Germany believe that the deaths and the destruction of the global economy could have been avoided, had China shared the information about the virus in its early phases, news agency PTI reported.

“It’s in 184 countries, as you hear me say often. It’s hard to believe. It’s inconceivable,” Trump told reporters at White House Tuesday. “It should have been stopped at the source, which was China. It should have been stopped very much at the source, but it wasn’t. And now we have 184 countries going through hell.” The virus, which originated in China’s Wuhan city in mid-November, has killed more than 200,000 people and infected over three million globally. The largest number of them are in the US: nearly 59,000 deaths and over one million infections…Read More