A large Chinese port city, located not far from North Korea which is facing a serious wave of Covid-19, has launched a general campaign of PCR tests for its 7.5 million inhabitants.
Read alsoNorth Korea: eight new deaths, lack of drugs in the midst of an outbreak of Covid-19
China has been facing a resurgence of the epidemic for several months.
Shanghai has been confined since the beginning of April and the capital Beijing is idling with the closure of many shops and offices.
Its neighbor North Korea is facing a much larger epidemic outbreak, with more than 1.7 million cases since last week, which worries the Chinese authorities.
A measure to reduce expenses
After registering several cases, the authorities of Dalian (North-East), located about 250 kilometers from the North Korean border, decided to screen their inhabitants.
Men will be tested on Tuesday, women on Thursday and everyone on Saturday.
The reasoning of the town hall: most households are made up of at least one man and at least one woman, who risk contaminating each other anyway if one of them falls ill.
According to the authorities, this screening method “
increases the time/efficiency ratio
”: it allows you to know every two or three days if a household is affected, at a lower cost because only part of the inhabitants are tested.
On the social network Weibo, the majority of Internet users welcomed a “
smart
” measure, in particular to “
reduce public spending
”.
“
And those who define themselves as neither male nor female?
However, another user wondered.
Shanghai still confined
Elsewhere in the country, the major port city of Tianjin (north), near Beijing, has closed some metro stations in the face of the increase in the number of cases, said CCTV television.
In Shanghai, if the authorities announced on Tuesday that they had overcome contamination (excluding quarantine establishments) in the city of 25 million inhabitants, many people remain confined.
Some told AFP that new cases had been reported in their residences, thus contradicting the official version.
Read alsoIn the hell of an expatriate confined to Shanghai: “I saw positive cases being taken away by force, wrapped in scotch tape”
Shanghai authorities have also criticized the “
excessive
” use of disinfectant spraying operations against the coronavirus in recent weeks, especially those directed against people.
The capital Beijing, where a large part of the inhabitants are still working from home, is still living in slow motion with restaurants, bars, gymnasiums and the majority of businesses closed.
Authorities there reported 69 new cases on Wednesday.