Virus outbreak waning, says national health body

The latest COVID-19 outbreak in China is waning, as several infection clusters at port or border cities have been handled swiftly and effectively, the National Health Commission said on Saturday.

Mi Feng, the commission spokesman, said among provincial-level regions affected by this round of epidemic, eight regions have reported no new local infections for 14 consecutive days.

Most regions are able to bring local outbreaks under control within one incubation period of the virus, which is around 14 days.

Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the commission's disease prevention and control bureau, said the infection cluster in Dalian, a port city in Liaoning, is stabilizing, but some areas are still at risk of seeing the virus's spread. "It is necessary to be cautious against flare-ups," he said.

He added that authorities will draw experiences and lessons from this round of outbreak, and focus on rolling out targeted, early and fine-tuned measures.

As of Friday, China had administered more than 2.4 billion COVID-19 doses and fully vaccinated nearly 1.08 billion people, or 76.3 percent of its total population.

Guo Yanhong, an official from the commission's medical administration department, said since Oct 17, when the first case among all the recent cases was reported in Shaanxi province, 647 patients had been cured and released from hospitals, taking up 40 percent of all reported confirmed cases.

The country had also delivered booster shots to more than 65.7 million people.