The Chinese city of Wuhan is testing its entire population for coronavirus in response to the spread of the Delta variant.
Chinese state media reported on Tuesday that authorities in the city of 11 million people decided to carry out mass testing after the city’s first three cases in about a year were registered.
It said the first coronavirus cases worldwide were detected in Wuhan in December 2019.
The government locked down the central Chinese city for 76 days to squash the outbreak.
The report said that the country had used strict measures to tackle coronavirus since then, and aside from several small-scale local outbreaks, had recorded almost no infections since last summer.
But after an outbreak at an airport in the eastern city of Nanjing two weeks ago, the Delta variant was spreading to a rising number of Chinese cities.
So far, more than 400 Delta infections had been recorded nationwide as mass testing was being carried out in many places. (dpa/NAN)