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March 30, 2020

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Rise in imported cases sparks ‘second wave’ infection fears

A GROWING number of imported coronavirus cases in China risked fanning a second wave of infections when domestic transmissions had “basically been stopped,” a senior health official said yesterday.

China’s mainland had an accumulated total of 693 cases entering from 42 countries, which meant “the possibility of a new round of infections remains relatively big,” Mi Feng, spokesman for the National Health Commission, said.

Nearly a quarter of those came from arrivals in Beijing.

“Beijing, the capital, still bears the brunt of the risks,” said Xu Hejian, spokesman for the Beijing government, said. “There’s no reason to lay back and relax yet. It’s not a time when we can say everything is going well.”

Most of those imported cases have involved Chinese returning home from abroad.

A total of 3,300 people have now died in China’s mainland, with a reported 81,439 infections.

Mi added that local transmission of COVID-19 has been basically blocked, with the number of existing domestic cases having dropped below 3,000.

In the last seven days, China has reported 313 imported cases of coronavirus but only six confirmed cases of domestic transmission, NHC’s data showed. There were 45 new coronavirus cases reported in the mainland on Saturday, down from 54 on the previous day, with all but one involving travelers from overseas.

Of the imported cases, eight were in Guangdong Province, seven each in Shanghai and Tianjin, four in Beijing, three each in Liaoning, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, two in Sichuan Province and one each in Chongqing, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Shanxi, Jilin, Fujian, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces, according to the commission. Shanghai has a total of 153 imported cases while Beijing has 160.

Airlines have been ordered to sharply cut international flights from Sunday. And restrictions on foreigners entering the country went into effect on Saturday.

China will further step up efforts on the prevention of sporadic domestic cases and imported cases by timely detection, fast treatment and precise control and prevention, Mi said.

Five more people died on Saturday, all of them in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province. It has reported only one new case in the last 10 days.

Saturday marked the fourth consecutive day that Hubei recorded no new confirmed cases. The sole case of domestically transmitted coronavirus was recorded in the central Henan Province, bordering Hubei.

With traffic restrictions in the province lifted, Wuhan is also gradually reopening borders and restarting some local transportation services.

A train arrived in Wuhan on Saturday for the first time since the city was placed in lockdown two months ago.




 

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