SHANGHAI – The capital and largest city in northern China’s Hebei province, prevented people from leaving on Thursday in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus, as the country reported the biggest increase in daily infections in more than five months.
Hebei was responsible for 51 of the 52 local cases reported by the National Health Commission on Thursday. This compares to the 20 cases recorded in the province, which surrounds Beijing, a day earlier.
Authorities in Shijiazhuang, where 11 million people live, launched mass testing units and banned meetings to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
In addition to preventing people from leaving the city, people and vehicles from high-risk areas of the city were not allowed to leave their district, officials said.
Hebei went into “war mode” on Tuesday, which means that investigative teams would be formed at the provincial, municipal and district levels to track contacts close to those who tested positive.
Chinese state television previously reported that Shijiazhuang had banned passengers from entering its main railway station. Previously, the city required travelers to pass a negative COVID-19 nucleic acid test obtained 72 hours before boarding a train or plane in the province.
The total number of new COVID-19 cases for the whole of mainland China stood at 63, compared with 32 reported the day before, marking the largest increase in daily cases since 127 cases were reported on July 30.
The number of asymptomatic carriers, who were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the disease, but have not yet developed any symptoms, also increased to 79, from 64 the day before.
The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in mainland China since the outbreak in Wuhan city in late 2019 now stands at 87,278, while the death toll has remained unchanged at 4,634.
In the city of Dalian, in Liaoning province, in northeastern China, which has reported local infections in the past few days, residents of medium or high-risk areas have been prevented from leaving the city. Residents of other areas have been instructed to avoid unnecessary travel outside Dalian.
Officials in southern China’s Guangdong province on Wednesday reported a patient infected with a more transmissible variant of the coronavirus discovered in South Africa.
Some scientists fear that the COVID-19 vaccines being launched may not be able to protect against this variant because of certain mutations that have been observed.