The samples are treated in the lab.

More than 150 people in quarantine inMinhangDistrict have tested negative in the past two days.

On Monday, Shanghai announced it would test all passengers who had arrived from overseas before March 31 who were under quarantine but had not yet been tested as they were not required to do so when they arrived.

LiuXiaohua, director ofMinhangDistrict’s center for disease control and prevention, said there were about 1,000 people in the district needing to be tested.

“Most of them are transit passengers who arrived earlier but their final destinations are not Shanghai,” saidLiu. “Now many of their destination cities require them to show negative reports of nucleic acid testing upon arrival so the tests will help them in entry. Meanwhile, the test will also help Shanghai and China further ensure public safety when they are discharged from quarantine and travel to their destinations.”

Liusaid the district CDC had a 56-member team responsible for taking samples at local observation sites. The workers from community health centers around the district received training on Monday on the new task of taking samples from up to 200 people a day quarantined at designated places.

“We arranged their work according to the lab capacity and decided the order for quarantined people to have their samples taken based on the time they had to complete quarantine,” saidLiu. “We will ensure all of them can get the result reports before they are discharged.”

A total of 55 were tested on Monday afternoon and got their negative results in the evening. Another 97 had their samples taken on Tuesday morning and got their results, all negative, in the afternoon, while 100 more whose samples were taken on Tuesday afternoon will get their results on Wednesday.

Liusaid the work is not easy as staff have to take samples from people one by one and change their protective suits, masks, gloves and goggles every time.

One workers takes sample from a quarantined person while another one or two put the sample into a storage box and collect waste produced during the process which needs special treatment to avoid contaminating the environment and cross infection.

After leaving, they have to change their suits, masks, gloves and goggles in the corridor and disinfect them before entering another room.

With a large number of samples to be tested every day, it takes more than six hours to get the results, saidLiu.

“But with our plan, all the current untested quarantined people will get the test results before April 12 when the last batch of people who have not been tested yet are to be discharged,” he said.

Two medical staff put on protective suits.

A medical worker takes samples to the lab.

Medical workers with samples taken from a designated quarantine hotel

The samples are treated in the lab.

Lab staff work day and night to ensure results are known as quickly as possible.