Virus-hit Shijiazhuang starting to resume normal life, work

Shijiazhuang in North China's Hebei province is resuming life and work in an orderly fashion in recent days as the COVID-19 outbreak that hit the city since earlier this year has been greatly contained.

The city detected one confirmed case by 2 pm on Tuesday, who was from a centralized quarantine center in Gaocheng district, the worst-hit site in the province during this round of the epidemic, city Vice-Mayor Meng Xianghong said during a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

About 55 percent of 1,000 enterprises above designated size and over 80 percent of supermarkets and wholesale markets for agricultural products in Shijiazhuang have resumed operation as of Tuesday, according to information shared at the conference.

Also on Tuesday, two medium-risk villages and a high-risk, county-level city in Shijiazhuang were lowered to low-risk and medium-risk, respectively, for virus infection.

After the change, Shijiazhuang, the province's capital city, only had four medium-risk areas and one high-risk, down from over 40 medium-risk and two high-risk areas at their peak, according to the province's health commission.