BEIJING — China now has 11,581 medical institutions capable of nucleic acid testing, 5.6 times that in last March, according to a press conference on Oct 30.

With the current capacity, more than 29 million individual samples can be tested per day, a number that can be increased further through pooled sampling, said Guo Yanhong, an official with the National Health Commission.

Nucleic acid testing institutions should be open to the public 24 hours a day, and produce results within six hours of testing, Guo said.