Sichuan city builds sites for patients' quarantine

The city of Guang'an in Sichuan province plans to finish building new quarantine sites with a total of 20,000 beds this week in response to the severe epidemic situation in one of its counties.

Each compartment will be equipped with air conditioning, a TV, bed, table, toilet and sink, according to Zhao Lichun, deputy chief engineer of Huaxi Group, which is in charge of construction.

On Friday, a makeshift hospital with 1,040 beds began operating in the city, led by Wang Kunjie, vice-president of West China Hospital of Sichuan University in Chengdu, and supported by 90 medical workers.

Sichuan's latest bout with COVID-19 started in Linshui county on May 9 when the county reported three asymptomatic cases. The local outbreak is believed to be Sichuan's most serious since January 2020, the provincial Health Commission said.

Linshui reported 33 confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 112 local asymptomatic cases on Wednesday, the Guang'an city health commission said on Thursday.

It found the county had accumulated 129 locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 795 local asymptomatic cases as of Wednesday, which has drawn growing attention to the small county's efforts to curb the pandemic.

The source of infection in this latest round of the epidemic is unknown, and the genetic sequencing shows that it is Omicron BA.2.2, the commission said.

On Wednesday evening, the city's emergency response headquarters for COVID-19 asked public servants and employees of enterprises and institutions to work at home except for necessary urgent tasks.

Residents are also being asked not to go out unless necessary.

Since Thursday, Guang'an has implemented traffic controls across the whole city, including in Linshui. All vehicles except for those of the military and police, ambulances and fire trucks need to apply for permits.

Meanwhile, China's capital is still facing a severe and complicated epidemic situation with the ongoing outbreak that started on April 22.

Beijing had reported 1,282 cases during the latest outbreak by Thursday afternoon, when the city had 14 high-risk areas for COVID-19 and 29 medium-risk areas, according to the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Many districts in Beijing have asked residents to work from home in order to cut transmission.

Museums, and indoor cultural and entertainment facilities have suspended operations.

Restaurants in locked-down or controlled zones, or other risk areas have stopped providing dine-in services.

"Beijing reported 64 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases between 3 pm on Wednesday and 3 pm on Thursday. Of the new infections, 62 were reported in controlled zones, and two were found from the mass nucleic acid tests at community level," Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, said at a news conference on Thursday.

Beijing has reported several infection clusters involving a wholesale market, a subway renovation project, a bus station and a branch of a logistics company, that have already resulted in more than 100 cases.

The latest cluster reported on Monday, involving a campus of Beijing Institute of Technology in Fangshan district, led to 11 confirmed cases by Tuesday afternoon, according to Zhang Mingzhi, a spokesman for Fangshan district.

All of the 670 teachers, students and other staff on the campus have been transferred to centralized quarantine sites.

Meanwhile, campuses of the other five universities near the area have been closed to the outside and are under strict control measures, Zhang said. Everyone in those universities will undergo three rounds of nucleic acid tests.