China Sees Biggest Rise in Daily COVID-19 Cases Since July

China reported 63 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, marking the biggest rise in daily cases since 127 cases were reported on July 30, according to Reuters.

Among the 63 new confirmed cases, 52 were locally transmitted and 11 were imported.

The majority of new cases have been reported in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing. According to China Daily, Hebei has recorded new local cases for the past five consecutive days and called for strict measures to thwart the spread of the virus.

On Thursday, the provincial health commission reported 51 confirmed cases and 69 asymptomatic carriers. All but one of the newly confirmed cases come from the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, which entered ‘wartime mode’ on Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, all communities and villages in the city have been under closed-off management, as cited by China Daily.

Health authorities plan to test all 10.39 million residents in Shijiazhuang, which started on Wednesday. So far, seven out of 600,000 samples have tested positive for COVID-19.

Three Chinese officials in Shijiazhuang’s Gaocheng district were punished for “negligence in COVID-19 intervention,” according to the city’s top anti-corruption authority on Wednesday. 

According to the Paper, China has added a new high-risk area in Shijiazhuang’s Gaocheng district. There are several medium-risk areas in Hebei’s Xingtai, Beijing (Chaoyang and Shunyi districts), Heilongjiang (Heihe city) and Liaoning (Shenyang and Dalian).

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In Guangdong, an imported coronavirus variant case was reported on Wednesday. The new case is a middle-aged South African pilot who tested positive for the virus on December 8, 2020. The provincial center for disease control and prevention found it was the South African 501Y.V2 variant after conducting gene sequencing on his samples, according to Xinhua.

An imported case in Hangzhou was reported on Wednesday. The patient is a male foreign teacher who recently returned from the UK, entering China from Guangzhou in December.

Local authorities said the patient arrived in Hangzhou on January 2 after completing a 14-day quarantine in Guangzhou. He had also tested positive as an asymptomatic carrier in April 2020 in the UK.

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[Cover image via @东西南北EWSN/Weibo]