Beijing's first inflatable COVID-19 testing lab goes into operation

BEIJING -- A mobile, inflatable laboratory for conducting COVID-19 tests was officially put into use on June 23 at a sports center in Daxing District in Beijing.

Provided by Chinese biotech company BGI Genomics, the laboratory can cope with 30,000 nucleic acid tests per day.

Named "Huoyan," or Fire Eye, the structure consists of nine air-inflated film chambers. Three of the chambers work as sample-receiving areas, while the other six accommodate 14 automated COVID-19 testing machines, each of which can extract 96 samples at a time, according to Liu Xin, a representative of BGI.

The operation of the lab will improve the efficiency of nucleic acid extraction. More than 100 personnel from BGI across the country are now in place and the operation is running smoothly, Liu added.