TIANJIN -- The northern Chinese municipality of Tianjin found 44 people testing positive for COVID-19 in its second citywide nucleic acid testing that ended early Friday morning, local authorities said.

The people were all detected in designated quarantine locations or areas under epidemic control, according to the local epidemic prevention and control headquarters.

The municipality of 13.9 million people that neighbors Beijing started its first round of citywide screening Sunday, in which 77 positive samples for COVID-19 were found. The second round of mass testing started on Wednesday morning.