A seafood vendor solicits customers in Beijing's Sanyuanli Market in February. Photo: Li Hao/GT

East China's Shandong Province has issued emergency orders requiring a nucleic acid test for products and environments of all trading places for imported seafood, ranging from wholesale markets to retail stores. The tests are to be completed by Thursday.

The leading group for COVID-19 response in Shandong Province announced on Monday that on the basis of the previous testing work targeting imported seafood and samples from the market environment, further work should be done to expand the scope of testing and achieve 100 percent coverage of novel coronavirus detection in large markets and their stalls, and imported seafood species.

At least one sample of each type of imported seafood shall be collected for each stall for imported seafood, and no less than five samples shall be collected from each stall, the notice said.

In addition to food, a thorough sample collection of each stall will be conducted with the focus on refrigerators, cutting boards, packaging surfaces, small baskets, hand-washing sinks, bottom drain surfaces, and door handles. At least 10 samples should be collected from each stall.

Meanwhile, all imported seafood market in the province will also be screened including transport vehicles.

Samples from the same stall and the same market can be mixed to speed up the detection. If the regional disease control and prevention center is overloaded with testing, it may entrust a third-party testing institution to do the work, the notice suggested.

Shanghai reported zero new cases as of press time since the two confirmed cases on May 30.