BEIJING (AP) – Shanghai imposed blockades on two of China’s best-known hospitals after they were linked to new coronavirus cases.
Outpatient services were suspended at Fudan University’s Shanghai Cancer Center and Renji Hospital. They were isolated, along with some neighboring residential communities.
After months of cracking down on small clusters with mass testing, isolation and social distance, China has seen outbreaks growing this winter, especially in its icy north. The National Health Commission announced on Friday that 103 new cases had been detected in the past 24 hours.
Blockages were also imposed in parts of Beijing and other cities after the outbreaks, schools are closing earlier and citizens were told to stay home for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday. China hopes to vaccinate 50 million people against the virus by mid-February.
Shanghai had six of the cases reported on Friday. The two hospitals were closed after suspicious cases were found in them on Wednesday and Thursday. It is not immediately clear whether any additional cases have been linked to hospitals.
Heilongjiang province, in the far north, recorded 47 new cases, followed by Jilin just south with 19 and Hebei province just outside Beijing with 18. Beijing registered three new cases.
Chinese hospitals are currently treating 1,674 patients for COVID-19, 80 of whom are in serious condition, while another 929 are under observation for positive testing without showing any symptoms.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region,
– South Korea reported its lowest daily increase in coronavirus infections in two months, while officials express cautious hope that the country is starting to recover from the worst outbreak of the pandemic. The 346 new cases reported by the Korean Disease Prevention and Control Agency on Friday brought the number of national cases to 74,262, including 1,328 deaths. The agency said 240 of the new infections came from the Seoul metropolitan area, where half of the country’s 51 million people live, which was hardest hit during a week-long increase in transmissions that began in mid-November. Health officials have restricted private social gatherings since late December, including fines at restaurants that accepted large groups of customers. After an increase of 1,241 on Christmas Day, new daily infections have declined to around 400 to 600 in the past few weeks, and authorities have eased some of the rules of social detachment.
– Myanmar received its first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine on Friday, a gift of 1.5 million doses from India. The vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and was produced under license in India. India has started shipping supplies of the vaccine to several countries, including neighboring Bangladesh, which has received 2 million doses. The delivery of the vaccine in India comes after China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised last week, during a visit to Myanmar, a donation of 300,000 doses of his own vaccine. The gifts from India and China are examples of what has been called vaccine diplomacy in a country where the two powers compete strongly for influence. On Thursday, Myanmar’s Ministry of Health announced 446 new cases of the coronavirus along with 16 new deaths. He reported a total of 136,166 cases, including 3,013 deaths. “In the coming weeks, we will have another batch of vaccines from other countries. Some are the ones we buy, ”said public health officer Tun Myint. The Indian embassy said Myanmar has signed an agreement with vaccine producer Serum Institute of India to purchase additional doses.