China rushed a team of medical specialists to Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang, after it reported 40 new coronavirus cases, including 23 asymptomatic infections, prompting the local administration to declare a “wartime mode”, official media reports here said on Saturday.
This is the second outbreak in Xinjiang, the Muslim Uyghur majority province which has been in the limelight in recent months over allegations of the internment of thousands of Uyghurs in special camps. China defends the camps as education camps.
Urumqi reported 17 confirmed COVID-19 patients, and 23 asymptomatic cases in the last four days, the state-run Global Times reported.
The current outbreak is related to a group gathering which is developing rapidly, and local health authorities have advised people not to panic as all the confirmed cases have mild to moderate symptoms, who are also under centralised medical observation, the report said.
The local government in Urumqi, has declared a “wartime mode” as all local residential communities have been put under “sealed-off management” in its fight against the resurgence of COVID-19, it said.
China’s National Health Commission (NHC) dispatched a medical expert team on Saturday to Xinjiang to investigate the epidemic amid a spike of domestic COVID-19 cases.