Photo:VCG

After announcing citywide COVID-19 tests on Sunday, Dalian in Northeast China sampled 1.68 million people on the first day of the screening campaign, one sixth of its population. 

The city's government has vowed to accomplish the citywide test within four days, starting Monday, after new clusters of infections have surged and reportedly spread to eight other cities within five days, including Northeast China's Liaoning and Heilongjiang as well as East China's Fujian. 

The comprehensive testing will prioritize residential communities that are densely populated, with all costs covered by the government, the Dalian Health Commission said. 

The commission said on Monday that it has assigned more than 3,300 medical employees to assist in administering nucleic acid tests. Qin Feng, a Dalian resident, told the Global Times on Monday that his wife also volunteered to participate in taking samples for community residents. "She leaves home at 7 am, and returns at around midnight."

Employees from local nucleic test center Chengze Testing Service Company, told the Global Times on Monday that they are capable of testing 400 people per day, and the results come out in 48 hours. 

She said like Wuhan and Beijing, Dalian also adopted the sample pooling test method, where they mix five samples together as a group. If found positive,  then they test one by one.

Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning Province, which administers Dalian, sent a medical group with eight nucleic test teams to Dalian to assist the latter's testing work, media reported on Sunday. 

A bus driver and a beauty salon employee were among the 14 new COVID-19 infections found in Dalian, local officials said on Monday. 

The 14 patients were all asymptomatic, ten of whom are employees of a local seafood processing company where the city's new cluster infection was reported and their family members.  

Among the new cases, one is a bus driver who had constantly been wearing a mask from July 21 to July 23, and tested positive on July 24. 

Another patient was a beauty salon employee who went to a district court, ate at a barbecue restaurant, and took public transportation on July 21. 

The Dalian government said on Monday that it would conduct serum antibody tests for all employees of the seafood processing company. 

From Monday until the day the employees' quarantine ends, they will also receive nucleic tests once every three days. 

Patients in the services sector provoke social concerns that they might have infected more, and the ongoing testing will find the potential infections and reassure the public, analysts said.