Hit By A Wave Of New COVID-19 Infections, East China Again Holds Mass COVID-19 Tests

Illustrated with COVID-19 from China. (Wikimedia Commons / David290)

JAKARTA - Several regions in East China have again staged a series of mass COVID-19 tests, as the country faces a new wave of infections while recovering from the effects of the spring outbreak that hit Beijing and Shanghai.

China continues to demand local authorities to detect and contain new infections as soon as possible in its 'dynamic COVID zero' strategy, although authorities have warned against expanding unnecessarily tight restrictions, as it struggles to revive the economy.

The daily number of locally transmitted infections in mainland China rose to more than 300 over the weekend compared with several dozen at the end of June. Though small by global standards, local officials still closed several businesses and locked up more than a million people.

In the eastern province of Anhui, which reported most of China's localized cases in the latest increase, the provincial capital Hefei announced late Sunday it is carrying out city-wide testing every three days, after last month briefly canceling weekly testing requirements.

The city of Si, in Anhui where 760,000 residents have been told to stay at home except to go out to get tested for COVID, mandated city-wide testing on Monday, the seventh round of mass testing.

Meanwhile, Lingbi City, also in Anhui, locked down its nearly 1 million residents and said it had canceled local business meetings with government officials.

In the southeastern province of Fujian, the Jiaocheng District and Xiapu City in Ningde City carried out mass testing on Sunday.

Ningde, where the world's largest battery maker CATL is headquartered, reported 10 domestically transmitted COVID infections for Sunday, data from the Fujian health authority showed on Monday.

Mainland China reported a total of 380 new local infections for July 3, of which 41 were symptomatic and 339 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Monday.

Meanwhile, cases of infection were detected in the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Fujian, Shandong, Shaanxi, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Sichuan, as well as in the city of Shanghai. There were no new deaths, keeping the country's reported deaths at 5,226.