Beijing on Sunday restricted the entry of people from regions where cases have been found after two more infections were reported in the city in the past 24 hours.
China on Sunday reported 75 new cases of Covid-19 for July 31 including at least 53 locally transmitted cases with infections related to the fast-spreading Nanjing-linked outbreak found in 18 provinces and 27 cities.
More than 300 cases, the majority said to be of the Delta variant, have been reported since the third week of July; more than 200 local infections have been reported from the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, state media reported on Sunday.
Beijing on Sunday restricted the entry of people from regions where cases have been found after two more infections were reported in the city in the past 24 hours.
Authorities said flights and passenger trains from affected areas to Beijing will be suspended.
The province of Jiangsu recorded 30 new locally transmitted cases for Saturday, up from 19 a day earlier.
There were also 12 new cases reported in central China’s Henan province where the flood-stricken city of Zhengzhou reported 11 new cases as of Saturday.The city also recorded 16 asymptomatic cases, which China does not include in official figures, as per a statement by the national health commission (NHC).
“The number of medium- and high-risk regions across the country rose to 95 on Sunday, of which 91 are medium-risk regions and four are high-risk regions including the Dehong prefecture of Yunnan, Nanjing of Jiangsu and Zhengzhou of Henan,” the report said.
Officials had earlier said that the first cases of the Nanjing outbreak were linked to workers at the Nanjing Lukou International Airport, who cleaned an aircraft after it arrived from Russia carrying an infected passenger.
Zhangjiajie, a popular tourist destination in central China’s Hunan province – which is said to have inspired the setting of the forests in James Cameron’s movie, Avatar – has reported at least eight confirmed cases as of Sunday.Cases in at least seven cities in five provinces including Sichuan and Liaoning and in Beijing have been linked to the tourist destination with tourists returning to their hometowns from the city at the end of their holidays.
Estimates say thousands of tourists had visited Zhangjiajie in July and have subsequently returned home across the country.
“The confirmation of a tourist agent in Zhangjiajie on Friday marked at least nine confirmed cases across the country that had links with Meili Xiangxi Grand Theatre in Zhangjiajie. One performance of the show was attended by at least 2,000 people (late last month),” reported the state-run Global Times.
Incidentally, the first confirmed case in the scenic city was linked to a person who had come from Nanjing.Considered China’s top respiratory specialist, Zhong Nanshan, expressed concern over the latest outbreak in Zhangjiajie, saying that while Nanjing as a big city is doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control, it is unknown whether the epidemic in Zhangjiajie will further spread within the smaller city.
The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases on the mainland reached 93,005 by Saturday, including 1,022 patients still receiving treatment, 25 of whom were in severe condition.
A total of 87,347 patients had been discharged from hospitals following recovery on the mainland, and 4,636 had died as a result of the virus.
