Beijingers queue up in long lines for mass virus testing

Thousands of Beijing residents were tested for the coronavirus on Thursday. The testing came while authorities stepped up efforts to identify those infected during a recent outbreak which began last week. By Thursday, the city had recorded 158 infections since confirming the first one on June 11 in its worst outbreak since early February.

Many in the restaurant sector have been asked to take a test. On Thursday afternoon, a lot of restaurants in east Beijing were temporarily closed because many staff had gone out to take a test.

Despite just a few cases compared to numbers outside China, authorities have brought in a huge arrangement of measures aimed at containing and tracing the virus in the capital and done so relatively quickly.

New rules include mandatory testing for people trying to enter Beijing tested and isolating at centralized locations for quarantine. by Thursday, China had recorded around 85,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 4,645 deaths according to official data.