COVID-19 control cranked up after sporadic cases reported

EIJING/SHENYANG - The more than 100,000 people who were given nucleic acid tests in Feixi county in East China's Anhui province on Saturday tested negative for COVID-19.

The countywide nucleic acid tests took place after one more locally-transmitted COVID-19 case was reported on Friday. It was the second case in Feixi and the third in Anhui since the first confirmed case of a 29-year-old female in Lu'an City was reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile, large-scale nucleic acid tests aimed at covering all 500,000 people in Bayuquan district, Yingkou city, Northeast China's Liaoning province, continued on Saturday. The second round of nucleic acid tests in this district, where most of the new cases emerged, will be launched on Sunday.

As of 7 pm Saturday, a total of six confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported in Liaoning Province, according to the provincial health commission.

Nine residential communities and villages in Yingkou have been upgraded to medium-risk areas for COVID-19 and put under closed-off management, the city government said.

The city government has ordered to cap visitor flow under 50 percent of the designed capacity in public places such as shopping malls, supermarkets, theaters, museums and restaurants.

The Liaoning provincial health authority has sent a team of 30 experts to Yingkou to guide COVID-19 prevention and control efforts, including epidemiological investigation and source tracing.

National capital Beijing has traced 28 close contacts of the reported COVID-19 cases in Anhui, the municipal center of disease prevention and control announced Saturday.

The close contacts, which include a driver of a ride-hailing platform, were found in 11 districts of the city from Thursday to Friday. The driver has tested negative for COVID-19, according to the center.

A total of 167 secondary close contacts have also been found, the center added.

So far, 24 close contacts and 141 secondary close contacts, as well as 231 samples from their surroundings, have given negative results after nucleic acid testing. The rest of the samples are being examined.