Residents in Quanzhou, Fujian Province wait in line to take nucleic acid tests on March 16. Photo: VCG

Quanzhou in East China's Fujian Province started city-wide mass nucleic acid testing from 7 am on Friday including foreigners as the city has reported 492 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases including 181 asymptomatic cases from March 13 to 10 am Friday.

On March 13, Quanzhou reported nine local confirmed cases during a regular screening, who are all employees at a local hotel in the city and later were confirmed to be infected with the Omicron variant. After the new cases were detected, schools in the region have switched from offline to online education, and cultural, entertainment and other gathering activities have been suspended.  

Due to the resurgence of the local cases, there were rumors that Quanzhou would be put under "lockdown." Quanzhou authorities denied the rumors on early morning Friday saying that they expanded the scope of regions under closed-loop management but not city-wide lockdown.

As of Thursday, the city has collected over 15.16 million nucleic acid samples and the results of over 10.63 million samples have come out, according to the authorities.

Several regions have been put under closed-loop management where personnel are not allowed to go out of the regions and gatherings are forbidden. One resident from each household can go out to buy daily supplies every 2-3 days in these regions, in order to reduce the personnel flow and curb the virus spread swiftly, according to the authorities. 

There are 193 emergency supply outlets in the city to meet the daily needs of citizens and the commodities such as grain, oil, meat, eggs and vegetables are sufficient.

Designated hospitals are also classified for residents' various needs such as those key group patients like cancer patients and pregnant and lying-in women.

The Party chief of Fujian Province Yin Li on Wednesday went to Quanzhou to guide the epidemic prevention work and called for a swift, scientific and targeted response to curb Omicron due to its fast and hidden transmission features.

Yin said that the treatment will be based on the new diagnosis and treatment scheme to conduct classified treatment and focus on key group residents.