 |
| Workers in protective suits stand at an entrance to a university's residential area under lockdown following the COVID-19 outbreak in Xi'an, China on Dec 20, 2021. (Fil photo by=Reuters/China Daily) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] BEIJING: China reported its highest daily rise in local COVID-19 cases in 21 months as infections more than doubled in the northwestern city of Xi'an, China's latest COVID-19 hot spot.
Reuters reported that the city of 13 million, which entered its fourth day of lockdown, detected 155 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms for Saturday, up from 75 a day earlier, official data showed on Sunday (Dec 26). That drove the national daily count to 158, the highest since China contained a nationwide outbreak in early 2020. With 485 local symptomatic cases reported for the Dec 9 to Dec 25 period, Xian has imposed heavy-handed measures to rein in the outbreak, in line with Beijing's policy that should contain any flare-up as soon as possible. The city managed to detect those cases through three rounds of mass testing quickly, He Wenquan, a Xian official, told a press conference on Sunday, adding that high case numbers could persist into the next couple of days.
The local government also announced that it would launch a city-wide disinfection campaign from 6 pm local time, urging residents to shut the windows and bring clothes or other items inside their balconies. The city has announced no infections caused by the Omicron variant, although Chinese authorities have reported a handful of Omicron infections among international travelers and southern China.
