Customers wearing face masks shop inside a supermarket following an outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan, Hubei province, China February 10, 2020. China Daily via REUTERS

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Wuhan city, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, has not been able to confirm all existing suspected cases of the coronavirus despite a rush to speed up testing, the city’s Communist Party Secretary told a news conference on Monday.

Ma Guoqiang said the Wuhan government would, however, aim to test all suspected cases by Tuesday. There have been growing complaints that many patients in the city of 11 million have not been tested or admitted for full-time treatment due to the pressure on medical resources.

Ma added that 1,499 patients in critical conditions who were not admitted for treatment before Feb. 8 have now been hospitalised.