China updated its guideline for organizing COVID-19 tests in the country on Tuesday to emphasize that the scale of testing is adjustable according to the situation, making the control measures more precise.

This is the second revision of the guideline after its release in February 2021. The first revision was in September 2021 to deal with the Delta variant.

The most noticeable change in this revision is the change in title. The term "mass testing" has been changed to "regional testing" to make sure people understand that the tests are not always targeting all residents in a city.

"We changed the word to 'regional' to emphasize that it's up to science to determine how many people should be included in an organized testing," Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Medical Administration of the National Health Commission (NHC), said at a press conference held in Beijing. "The region can be as small as a residential building or as big as a city."

Other changes include a time limit of 24 hours, nine work posts that must be filled, a way to calculate testing capacity and a series of technical details.