Beijing on Tuesday reported 13 new domestically-transmitted COVID-19 cases, as the Chinese capital has continued to increase its coronavirus testing capacity to one million samples a day following a fresh outbreak in the city’s wholesale food market.

According to Beijing’s municipal health commission, the city has reported 249 confirmed domestically-transmitted cases related to the Xinfadi market outbreak, all of whom were receiving treatment in hospitals, reports Xinhua news agency.

Last week, China reported 34 new coronavirus cases, including 22 in Beijing, where the health officials have submitted the virus genome sequence from the recent clusters of COVID-19 infections to the World Health Organisation.

Earlier, the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the virus genome sequence from the recent clusters of Covid-19 infections related to Beijing’s Xinfadi wholesale farm produce market.

Meanwhile, there were 22 asymptomatic cases still under medical observation, and one imported case hospitalized in Beijing, the Commission added.

The analytical capacity of the laboratories is still considerably less than the daily samples collected, currently around 500,000.

Joint group tests incorporate five samples in a single analysis and allow Beijing to screen up to one million specimens in a day.

The number of testing centres has gone from 98 to 124 in recent days and around 2.3 million people have been tested, amounting to 10 per cent of the city’s 22 million population.

Group testing was used in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic originated last December.

Last Tuesday, Chinese officails warned that the coronavirus situation in Beijing is “extremely severe”, as new infections were reported from Beijing where a new cluster has sparked a huge trace-and-test programme.

As of Tuesday, China reported a total of 84,624 COVID-19 cases, with 4,639 deaths.

The World Health Organization also expressed concern about the cluster, pointing to Beijing’s size and connectivity.

Beijing’s coronavirus testing capacity has been expanded to 90,000 a day, according to China’s official news agency Xinhua.

Officials had warned that since May 30, 200,000 people had visited the Xinfadi market — the original site of the new outbreak.

Until this recent outbreak, most of China’s cases in recent months were nationals returning home as the pandemic spread to other countries.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus cases across the world crossed the nine million-mark on Monday, with the United States still sitting on top in terms of the number of cases.