Nation's COVID-19 testing capacity greatly enhanced

China has greatly boosted its COVID-19 nucleic acid testing capacity over the past two years and local authorities are working to increase the numbers of testing personnel to facilitate the establishment of regular testing stands in large cities, the National Health Commission said on Friday.

Guo Yanhong, an official with the commission's Bureau of Medical Administration, said during a news conference that there are currently 153,000 professionals capable of processing 57 million samples a day.

As the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism has recently ordered large cities to make regular nucleic acid tests available to residents within a 15 minute walk, Guo said the new requirement will increase convenience and facilitate the early detection of new infections and increase the ability of the early warning systems to bring new clusters under control.

A number of cities, including Hangzhou and Shenzhen, have begun bolstering testing capabilities.

Local governments are exploring methods to increase the numbers of personnel, such as encouraging medical workers to receive the appropriate training, and asking regular staff and volunteers to take charge of logging information and maintaining order at test sites.

To ensure test quality, Guo said the commission has arranged for national and provincial supervisors to conduct more checks.

In terms of the threat the Omicron strain poses to the elderly, Wang Huaqing, chief immunization planning expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that in areas with widespread outbreaks, the rate of severe illness and death among unvaccinated seniors is relatively high.

According to data released by health authorities in Hong Kong, the mortality rate for the unvaccinated elderly during an Omicron outbreak was 16.5 percent, higher than the 14.8 percent reported during the initial wave of infections in Wuhan in 2020.

On the mainland, nearly 82 percent of people aged 60 and above had been fully vaccinated and 164 million had received a booster shot as of Thursday.