China postpones SCO Trade Expo amid new COVID-19 outbreak, launches mass tests in Qingdao

Qingdao, eastern China, reported twelve new COVID-19 cases, including six asymptomatic cases, following the outbreak of three new infections in the city on Sunday.

Amid concerns of a new local outbreak, authorities launched mass inspections and locked some residential complexes on Sunday, which are related to new cases.

The Municipal Health Commission on Monday said it will conduct a citywide nuclear acid test for Kovid-19, which will cover 9 million residents over the next five days. All of these cases appear to have been linked to Qingdao Chest Hospital, a medical institution designated for COVID-19 patients from abroad.
Amid this new outbreak in Qingdao, the investment and trade expo organized by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and scheduled for the weekend of October 16-18 in Qingdao have been postponed as reported by state television.

The National Health Commission of China has sent a working group to Qingdao, Shandong Province, eastern China, to control the rise of new COVID-19 cases.

According to the local government, all medical staff at hospitals in Qingdao, patients and nurses admitted to the new hospital were given nucleic acid tests, with a total of 114,862 negative results.

China has already conducted mass tests. The city of Wuhan tested its entire population, and several million samples were mass-tested in Beijing and Urumqi as well.

The number of daily Kovid-19 cases in mainland China has dropped sharply from the peaks seen in February this year.