By KEN MORIT­SUGU | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

BEI­JING (AP) — Re­peat­ed COVID-19 test­ing of mil­lions of Bei­jing res­i­dents is start­ing to test the pa­tience of some as the city clamps down on the virus ahead of the com­ing Win­ter Olympics.

A third round of mass test­ing that start­ed Wednes­day for the two mil­lion res­i­dents of Feng­tai dis­trict drew com­plaints on­line and from res­i­dents bun­dled up against the wind to wait in line out­doors. The skies were sun­ny, but the day­time high hov­ered around the freez­ing point.

“I think it is too fre­quent,” said a woman who on­ly gave her sur­name, Ma. “I just did it yes­ter­day and was asked to do it again to­day. I asked the ques­tion to the staff, and they said, ‘Un­der the prin­ci­ple of test­ing every­one who should be test­ed, just do it since you are here.’”

A volunteer in protective gear walks by masked residents lining up to get tested at a coronavirus test site outside a residential housing block in Fengtai District in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. The Chinese capital reported an uptick more than dozen daily new COVID-19 cases as it began a third round of mass testing of millions of people Wednesday in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

As health work­ers set up mul­ti­ple test­ing sta­tions around the city, there were scat­tered re­ports of peo­ple be­ing told their test­ing would be de­layed be­cause of a sys­tem is­sue. It was un­clear what the prob­lem was and whether it would sig­nif­i­cant­ly set back the ef­fort.

Ath­letes and oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Games are be­ing com­plete­ly iso­lat­ed from the gen­er­al pub­lic to try to avoid cross-in­fec­tion. Thir­teen peo­ple who have come for the Games test­ed pos­i­tive on Tues­day, bring­ing the to­tal to 106 among the 3,695 who have ar­rived. Two of the pos­i­tive cas­es are ei­ther ath­letes or team of­fi­cials.

Those who test pos­i­tive are tak­en to a hos­pi­tal if they have symp­toms and to a quar­an­tine ho­tel if they do not.

Residents line up to get a throat swab at a coronavirus test site outside a residential housing block in the Fengtai District of Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. The Chinese capital reported an uptick more than dozen daily new COVID-19 cases as it began a third round of mass testing of millions of people Wednesday in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Bei­jing of­fi­cials said Wednes­day that eight peo­ple had test­ed pos­i­tive in the 24-hour pe­ri­od end­ing at 4 p.m., bring­ing the to­tal in the city’s delta vari­ant out­break to 69. Of those, 54 have symp­toms and 15 do not.

The num­bers are small com­pared to oth­er coun­tries — South Ko­rea’s lat­est dai­ly tal­ly topped 13,000 — but they are a ma­jor con­cern for the gov­ern­ment as it pre­pares to host the Win­ter Games in nine days.

The Chi­nese cap­i­tal has stepped up the coun­try’s al­ready strict pan­dem­ic re­sponse mea­sures. Mass test­ing of neigh­bour­hoods and build­ings is be­ing con­duct­ed around the city, and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment an­nounced this week that any­one who buys fever, headache or oth­er cold med­i­cines would have to take a COVID-19 test with­in 72 hours.

Residents wearing face masks to help protect from the coronavirus gather in line as they wait for a throat swab at a COVID-19 test site outside a residential housing block in Fengtai District in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. The Chinese capital reported an uptick more than dozen daily new COVID-19 cases as it began a third round of mass testing of millions of people Wednesday in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

At one phar­ma­cy, any­one pur­chas­ing such med­i­cines was re­quired to scan a QR code be­fore mak­ing the pur­chase. A no­tice from the gov­ern­ment said that pur­chasers were re­quired to reg­is­ter their name, phone num­ber, ad­dress, and of­fi­cial ID num­ber.

“This is not con­ve­nient, but we should co­op­er­ate with what­ev­er poli­cies the gov­ern­ment comes up with,” Zhang Jian­ping, a sales­per­son at a shop­ping mall, said of the new cold med­i­cine re­quire­ment. “We should pro­tect our­selves from catch­ing a cold, so we don’t be­come a bur­den on the coun­try.”

All 2 mil­lion res­i­dents in Feng­tai dis­trict, where half of the cas­es in Bei­jing have been found, are be­ing test­ed for the third time since last week­end. Some ar­eas of the dis­trict have been locked down, with res­i­dents not al­lowed to leave their hous­ing com­plex or neigh­bor­hood.

An of­fi­cial an­nounce­ment of the test­ing on so­cial me­dia late Tues­day drew about 90 com­ments, most­ly crit­i­cal. Some said the fre­quent test­ing wastes re­sources, dis­rupts work and dai­ly life, and bur­dens health care work­ers and com­mu­ni­ty of­fi­cials.

A medical worker wearing protective gear prepares swabs at a coronavirus test site outside a residential housing block in Fengtai District in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022. The Chinese capital reported an uptick more than dozen daily new COVID-19 cases as it began a third round of mass testing of millions of people Wednesday in the run-up to the Winter Olympics. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

The mass test­ing is con­duct­ed in groups of 10 peo­ple. One of the peo­ple holds a con­tain­er, and a health work­er takes sam­ples from each of the 10 peo­ple and drops the swabs in­to the same con­tain­er. They are test­ed to­geth­er, and if the re­sult come back pos­i­tive, then each of the 10 peo­ple is test­ed in­di­vid­u­al­ly.

“I have got­ten used to it,” said Tang Yu­peng, a restau­rant work­er who was be­ing test­ed in Dongcheng dis­trict. “I took my last test two days ago, and it caught us off guard, but this time we re­ceived no­tice be­fore­hand so it’s ok.”

Chi­na’s gov­ern­ment has stuck to a ze­ro-COVID ap­proach, even as oth­ers have loos­ened re­stric­tions on move­ment. Au­thor­i­ties snuff out any out­break, no mat­ter how small, with lock­downs, mass test­ing and trav­el re­stric­tions. The pol­i­cy has kept the num­ber of cas­es and deaths rel­a­tive­ly low in Chi­na but makes it chal­leng­ing for the gov­ern­ment to ex­it that strat­e­gy.

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As­so­ci­at­ed press video pro­duc­ers Wayne Zhang and Olivia Zhang and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Ng Han Guan con­tributed to this re­port.