THE city of Qingdao in East China’s Shandong Province reported six new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, the provincial health commission said yesterday.

All the six cases were previously diagnosed as asymptomatic cases, according to the commission.

Qingdao is conducting city-wide nucleic acid testing to curb the spread of the virus. Over 7.5 million people had been sampled for nucleic acid testing by 9:30 a.m. yesterday.

Over 4.06 million of the collected samples have been tested so far and, with the exception of the cases already reported, no new positive samples have been detected, the municipal health commission said.

Qingdao has a population of more than 11 million. The city has vowed to complete city-wide nucleic acid testing within five days starting Monday.

In total, more than 10,000 medics and 20,000 volunteers have joined in to facilitate the testing.

“The National Health Commission has urgently allocated 9,000 milliliters of convalescent plasma from recovered COVID-19 cases for the treatment of severe patients in Qingdao,” Chen added.

A mixed testing approach has been adopted to improve efficiency, according to Zhang Huaqiang with the municipal health commission.

“If a 10-in-1 sample is positive, we will inform the 10 people to undergo separate isolation and testing to further identify carrier of the positive sample,” said Zhang.

By Tuesday, Beijing had reported five close contacts linked to confirmed cases in Qingdao.

The five individuals and their own close contacts, a total of 15 people, have all tested negative for the virus and are under medical observation, according to a press conference yesterday.

(Xinhua)