Crowds at Wuhan clinics fear COVID-19 testing could rekindle disease
17 May, 2020
As Wuhan, the Chinese city where the COVID-19 pandemic began, revs up an enormous testing campaign, some residents crowding the test centres expressed concern on Saturday (May 16) that the act to getting tested could expose them to the coronavirus.
Safety has become a hot topic on social media groups among the 11 million residents of Wuhan, people told Reuters because they converged on open-air test sites at clinics and other facilities. Many said, though, that they support the voluntary campaign.
Wuhan health authorities sprang back to action after confirming last weekend the central Chinese city's first cluster of new infections since it premiered from virtual lockdown on Apr 8.
The brand new cases - every one of them persons who had previously displayed no symptoms of the condition - spurred Wuhan authorities to launch a citywide seek out asymptomatic carriers of the virus, looking to gauge the degree of COVID-19 risk.
"Some people have expressed worry in the (social media) groups about the tests, which require persons to cluster, and whether there's any infection risk," said one Wuhan resident who asked never to be named.
"But others rebutted those worries, saying such comments are not supportive of the government."
The neighborhood health authority said 113,609 nucleic acid tests were conducted on May 15.
This is a lot more than 50 per cent greater than the 72,791 tests conducted a day earlier, and is also the highest because the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission started publishing the data on Feb 21.
The unprecedented scale of testing indicates the state degree of concern, some specialists say. Others say it is an exceptionally costly exercise and question its effectiveness.
At a testing kiosk in Jianghan district in central Wuhan, a volunteer was patrolling and spraying disinfectant at an extended line of people.
Many people observed social distancing, such as queuing 1 m apart, and there were signs to remind them. And many did not. In some cases, volunteer workers weren't insisting that they comply.
At another open-air testing kiosk, where throat swabs were taken, yellow and black stickers on the ground kept persons from converging.
But behind the long queue, about 40 persons gathered with no guidance from officials or volunteers.
Residents said the authorities have not told them if they would get the results of their tests.
China has confirmed 82,941 cases of COVID-19 by Friday and 4,633 deaths. The government does not include persons found to be asymptomatic carriers of the virus in its tally and will not publish a cumulative number of asymptomatic cases.
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