Beijing's air-inflated lab to expand testing capacity

Beijing's first air-inflated testing lab, called the Huoyan, which literally means "Fire Eye" Laboratory, has added seven more film chambers, for a total number of 16, according to the municipal government on Saturday.

Upon completion, its daily testing capacity will expand to 100,000 samples, including samples for nucleic acid testing.

The lab, in Beijing's Daxing district, was designed with a fresh air system and highly-efficient filtration system, which means that the air in and out of each function zone in the lab can be filtrated. Thus, workers outside the chamber do not need to wear protective clothing.

Liu Xin, a person in charge at the lab, said compared with traditional labs, the air-inflated nucleic acid testing lab can be built very quickly. It takes only 50 minutes to inflate a film chamber, which adopts a modular design and can be upgraded in response to the latest outbreak situation.