Cities across country battle to control COVID-19 flare-ups

Residents required to stay at home in Chengdu; school openings delayed

Multiple cities across the country are experiencing new COVID-19 outbreaks, forcing local authorities to roll out measures to curb transmissions, such as confining residents at home and delaying students' return to school.

Chengdu, capital city in Sichuan province, required residents to stay home and unnecessary businesses to suspend from 6 pm on Thursday, according to local authorities.

Households can send one family member to go out once a day to buy daily supplies with a negative nucleic acid result from within 24 hours, said Zhang Jinquan, head of the Chengdu city bureau of commerce, adding that the supermarkets and farm produce markets will be open on Friday to guarantee the supply of fresh vegetables and meat.

Since the report of the first case of infection linked to people outside the city on Aug 12, Chengdu has reported more than 900 local infections, involving more than 20 infection chains. The pressure on epidemic prevention and control is very high, said Fan Shuangfeng, from the Chengdu Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Starting on Thursday, Chengdu will carry out mass testing over four consecutive days.

Apart from Sichuan, the Chinese mainland reported another 175 local confirmed cases on Wednesday, of which 53 were in the Tibet autonomous region, the National Health Commission said on Thursday. The rest of the cases were scattered across 15 provincial-level regions.

Altogether, 1,596 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified on Wednesday, including 621 in Tibet, 212 in Qinghai province and 130 in Heilongjiang province, it said.