With daily COVID-19 cases on the rise in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Liaoning province, health authorities are conducting mass nucleic acid testing.
Since July 15, Xinjiang has reported 137 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with 135 located in the capital city of Urumqi. The city has tested more than 65% of the 3.5 million residents for COVID-19, according to Global Times. The region has witnessed double-digit new case numbers for five consecutive days.
GT reported that many of the new confirmed cases are previous silent virus carriers or suspected patients who are already under observation. Rui Baoling, director of the disease control and prevention center in Urumqi, pointed out that this doesn’t necessarily mean that the disease is still spreading.
A second round of large-scale testing in major districts around Urumqi has been launched to identify false-negative residents. The second screening started from Sunday, and focused on high-risk areas like Tianshan and Saybagh districts.
Over in Northeast China, health authorities in Liaoning’s Dalian city announced that they will test its six million residents in efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19. On Monday, 14 new confirmed cases were reported.
On July 24, the city announced sweeping disease control and prevention measures after a 58-year-old man working at a seafood company tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday. The city hadn’t recorded a new COVID-19 case in 111 days, according to Global Times.
As of Saturday, all nursing homes, kindergartens and indoor public places in Dalian have been closed off.
In total, China has 83,891 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths, as of July 27. The global total case count has surpassed 16 million, with the US, Brazil and India recording the most COVID-19 cases.
[Cover image via Global Times]
0 User Comments