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Shanghai faces unexpected round of COVID testing for most residents

10 June 2022 05:57 (UTC +04:00)

China's commercial hub of Shanghai faces an unexpected round of mass COVID-19 testing for most residents this weekend - just 10 days after a city-wide lockdown was lifted - unsettling residents and raising concerns about the impact on business, APA reports citing Xinhua.

Shanghai officials on Thursday said seven of the city's 16 districts would carry out PCR testing for all residents over the weekend due to the discovery of a few cases in the community, saying they wanted to prevent a renewed outbreak.

Another six districts announced similar plans later in the day. Some of the districts said residents would not be allowed to leave their homes while the testing was carried out.

"During the sampling communities will carry out 'closed management', there will be only entry and not exit, which will be lifted after the sampling is over," read one notice from Changning district.

"We hope that residents ... will participate in an orderly way in the PCR testing."

The announcements were greeted with surprise and concern, with some taking to the Twitter-like Weibo platform to ask how the testing would affect plans for the weekend, such as moving house or seeing a doctor. Many expressed fear they could be locked down again.

The move comes on top of already onerous testing requirements that the city introduced for its 25 million residents after easing a city-wide lockdown on June 1.