Mongolia will launch a door-to-door COVID-19 testing campaign on Feb. 11, when a 24-hour, two week length lockdown comes into effect in the capital, the State Emergency Commission, SEC, said on Thursday.
The planned lockdown period will cover the Lunar New Year and the traditional White Moon festival, during which 280 tracing teams will run a mass test of 420,000 households in the city, the commission said in a statement.
Ulan Bator has become the epicenter of COVID-19, where there is now a high risk of infection, Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the National Center for Communicable Diseases Surveillance Department, said.
She said that as the source of some confirmed cases is yet to be identified, asymptomatic patients are likely walking among the public.
So far, Mongolia has reported 1,890 COVID-19 cases, with more than 1,000 detected in Ulan Bator, home to over half of the country’s 3.3 million population.
Xinhua/NAN
