No New Local COVID-19 Cases in Shanghai as China Records 71

By Ned Kelly, August 4, 2021

No new local COVID-19 cases were recorded in Shanghai on Tuesday, according to a daily report by China’s National Health Commission on Wednesday. It comes after the first local case since the recent outbreak was confirmed by the city's disease control and prevention center on Monday.

The Chinese mainland recorded 71 new local COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, up from 61 on Monday. Thirty-five of the cases were recorded in Jiangsu, where the recent outbreak started with cases of the Delta variant detected in provincial capital Nanjing. A further 15 were recorded in Hunan, nine in Hubei, six in Shandong, three in Yunnan, two in Henan and one in Fujian, according to the commission.

The commission also reported 25 new imported COVID-19 cases on Wednesday: seven in Yunnan, four in Fujian, three in Jiangsu, two each in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong and one each in Tianjin, Shanxi, Liaoning, Henan and Sichuan.

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

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 144 medium- and high-risk areas, the most since the country adopted normalized COVID-19 prevention measures, said National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng at a press conference Wednesday.

China Railway is offering full refunds on all railway tickets purchased before August 4 to curb the spread of COVID-19 through communities. The full refund policy exempts the charge of service fees and applies to tickets booked via various channels, reports Shine.

China's civil aviation authority has followed suit, ordering domestic airlines to offer free ticket refunds for recent flights.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the sale of train tickets to Beijing-bound passengers from 23 cities would be suspended, while tickets for flights and long-distance buses have also been suspended from a number of cities.

The recent 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]