China Reports 4 New Local COVID-19 Cases on Friday

By Ned Kelly, August 20, 2021

The Chinese mainland recorded four new local COVID-19 cases on Thursday, according to a daily report by China’s National Health Commission on Friday.

Two of the cases were recorded in Jiangsu, where the current outbreak started with cases of the Delta variant detected in provincial capital Nanjing. Two further cases were reported in Yunnan, according to the commission.

The commission also reported 29 new imported cases, including nine in Guangdong, six in Yunnan, two each in Beijing, Liaoning, Shanghai, Fujian and Henan, and one each in Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu and Sichuan.

No deaths related to COVID-19 were reported, the commission added.

In Shanghai, culture and tourism authorities have once again suspended interprovincial group tours and airline and accommodation packages, following a locally transmitted COVID-19 case being reported in Songjiang District on Wednesday.

The suspension had been lifted for only one day, after a medium-risk residential complex in Pudong was designated as low risk on Monday.

The new Shanghai case, a 25-year-old female, is a resident of Youlu Apartments in Songjiang's Yongfeng Subdistrict, which has now been rated a medium-risk area. The suspension will only be lifted again once there are no medium-risk regions in Shanghai.

All 31 provincial-level regions in the Chinese mainland have urged citizens not to leave the provinces where they live unless it is necessary, and to avoid medium and high-risk areas for COVID-19, with enhanced prevention and control measures, including quarantine, for those that have.

China has identified 29 high-risk and 74 medium-risk areas at the time of publication. Scan the QR to find out where they are, and see the latest numbers:

The current outbreak started with cases of the Delta variant detected in Jiangsu’s capital Nanjing, with infections traced back to a flight from neighboring Russia.

[Cover image via NIAID-RML]