New cases identified in Heilongjiang

Heilongjiang identified 43 new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 and 31 asymptomatic carriers on Thursday, the province's health commission reported on Friday.

All 43 confirmed cases were found in Suihua city's Wangkui county, where the first asymptomatic case in the recent outbreak was reported on Sunday.

The 31 asymptomatic cases were found in the cities of Suihua, Daqing, Yichun and Qiqihar.

All the patients were in some way connected with Huiqi village in Wangkui, the commission said.

"Wangkui has completed large-scale coronavirus testing covering 247,724 residents on Thursday," Dong Wenqin, deputy mayor of Suihua, said at a news conference on Thursday evening. "Testing in other counties and districts of the city is underway and expected to be complete before Monday."

The provincial epidemic prevention and control headquarters had dispatched a team to Suihua that includes 1,000 professional sample collection workers, which will greatly improve the speed of the collection work, she said.

"With guidance from national and provincial experts, epidemiological investigations are going smoothly," she added.

The second round of tests in Wangkui began on Friday, according to Ma Tianmin, head of the county.

"With the help of a mobile phone app that can achieve a complete assessment of the sample collection work—including such things as input, transfer, reception and testing of the samples — the single-sample collection work will be completed within in 20 seconds," he said. "The daily collection capacity will be improved to 60,000 from the previous 18,000."

Residents of two major affected sections of Huiqi village have been transported to centralized quarantine facilities as part of an effort to ensure their safety and rein in the outbreak, Dong said.

Neighboring Jilin province reported 14 local asymptomatic carriers on Friday, according to the provincial health commission.

Among them, a 45-year-old male patient had returned to Songyuan city from Wangkui on Jan 9.

The other 13 were found in the cities of Tonghua and Gongzhuling. All of them had close contact with the three asymptomatic individuals reported on Wednesday who came from Heilongjiang, the commission said.