Tonghua readies massive quarantine facility

A new quarantine facility with 1,186 rooms is currently under construction in Tonghua, Jilin province. Local authorities said construction of the facility is expected to be finished on Wednesday.

The construction began on Thursday at the Tonghua Bonded Logistics Center, and it has an area of 48,000 square meters.

Tonghua has been heavily affected by an outbreak that started on Jan 12, when the first positive COVID-19 case was reported. As of Sunday, there were 196 confirmed cases and 50 asymptomatic carriers in the city.

On Monday, Jilin's provincial health commission reported a total of 67 new locally transmitted confirmed cases from the previous day, with 56 from Tonghua.

In addition to the new facility, Tonghua has strengthened measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus and improved services supporting locals in home quarantine.

At a news conference on Monday, Tonghua Mayor Li Ping said more than 7,000 people, including government officials, community workers and volunteers, have pitched in to accelerate deliveries of daily necessities to residents.

"As of 3 pm on Monday, over 73,000 households in Dongchang district－the only high-risk area in the province－had received packages containing a five-day supply of groceries," he said. "Deliveries for the rest of the 33,000 households will be completed by midnight on Monday."

Changchun, Jilin's capital, has had its first two recoveries in the recent outbreak. Those patients were discharged from the hospital on Monday.

As of Sunday, the province had reported 273 confirmed cases and 60 asymptomatic carriers in the recent outbreak.

Neighboring Heilongjiang province reported 35 new local cases and 20 asymptomatic carriers on Sunday, of which 18 confirmed cases and 18 asymptomatic carriers were from Harbin.

Most of the cases were in some way connected to local food company Heilongjiang Charoen Pokphand in Harbin. The company was shut down and was screening its workers and products for the virus.

"As of Monday, we have removed more than 1,400 metric tons of their products from the markets and conducted nucleic acid testing," said Li Jinsong, deputy director of the provincial administration for market regulation, on Monday. "Tests of more than 91,000 samples were conducted and nine samples from the outer packages had tested positive."

Li added that a total of 2,434 kilograms of products had gone to markets in a number of cities, including Suihua, but all have been sealed.

In Hebei province, the recent outbreak appeared to be on the decline, with its capital Shijiazhuang recording three new local confirmed cases and one asymptomatic carrier by midday on Monday－a sharp decrease from two-digit increases on some days earlier this month.

Jiang Ping, director of the Shijiazhuang Fifth People's Hospital, said those who have recovered are required to undergo a 21-day medical observation at a designated hospital before going home. After returning home, they will undergo a 14-day home quarantine, followed by a three-month follow-up visit to local medical facilities, including taking regular nucleic acid tests.

"These measures are aimed at following up with those who have recovered to ensure their health, in case some test positive again," he said.

Sporadic local cases

Beijing is still battling with sporadic local cases, with mass nucleic acid testing still ongoing. Tian Tao, an official with the city's COVID-19 control and prevention work leading group, said a total of 17.46 million nucleic acid tests had been completed by Sunday since the city's new round of outbreaks started on Dec 14.

In a new policy released on Monday, officials said that those who have pets are allowed to move into a designated quarantine site that accepts people in any condition in Daxing district, where the Ronghui community is designated as a high-risk area. This means that for those families requiring to move into centralized quarantine facilities, one member from each family is allowed to move into the designated quarantine site with their pet while the rest of the family members move into other quarantine facilities. For the designated quarantine site with pets, there will be animal quarantine staff on site to provide related services starting Monday.

Shanghai also reported one new local COVID-19 case on Sunday, bringing the total number of new cases to 13, according to the municipal government on Monday morning.

Zhang Wenhong, leader of the Shanghai expert team in the clinical treatment of COVID-19 cases, wrote on his personal Weibo blog on Sunday that Shanghai's COVID-19 pandemic control efforts have always been like "catching mice in a porcelain shop", likening the situation to the Chinese saying.

"The epidemic prevention and control workers are doing their best to catch the 'mice' while leaving the porcelain intact. They want to cause the least disruption to the daily lives of residents," he wrote.

Du Juan in Beijing, Zhang Yu in Shijiazhuang and Zhou Wenting in Shanghai contributed to this story.