Nanjing reports 38 new local COVID-19 infections

Nanjing, the capital of East China's Jiangsu province, reported a record daily tally of COVID-19 infections on Monday morning with 38 locally transmitted cases.

The COVID-19 situation might be getting worse as health authorities have not figured out the chain of transmission, Nanjing's leading group for pandemic response said.

Containing the virus is top priority, it said. The strictest measures will be taken to block the chain of transmission, and find the source of the virus.

Nanjing will suspend operations at eight intercity bus stations from Tuesday. Its Jiangning district suspended intercity bus operations last Wednesday.

Long-haul bus services out of the city will also be suspended from Tuesday, and all taxis and vehicles used by ride-hailing services will be banned from leaving the city.

By Monday, Nanjing had reported 75 locally transmitted cases and 13 local asymptomatic carriers since a group of airport workers tested positive for the virus last week, Yang Dasuo, deputy director of the city's health commission, told a news conference.

"A total of 76 locally transmitted cases were undergoing treatment at Nanjing's designated hospital as of Monday," he said. "That included a three-year-old boy and a patient from nearby Suqian city.

"Two of the patients are in severe condition and specific treatment plans have been made for each patient."

Seven of the city's 11 districts have reported residents testing positive for novel coronavirus. Most of those infected were airport workers from the cleaning and ground services departments and their contacts.

The patient from Suqian tested positive in that city after a visit to Nanjing's Lukou International Airport.

As of Monday, Zhuhai and Zhongshan in Guangdong province, Mianyang in Sichuan province, Shenyang in Liaoning province, and Ma'anshan and Wuhu in Anhui province, had all reported locally transmitted cases involving people who had been to Nanjing.

Zhuhai, Zhongshan and Wuhu launched large-scale nucleic acid testing as soon as their locally transmitted cases were confirmed.

"Lukou airport is an international airport and it is likely that the virus was brought in by cold chain transportation or people," Zhang Boli, president of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, told Health Times, a subsidiary of People's Daily.

"The pandemic in Nanjing shows that there are still loopholes in pandemic prevention. We should be highly alert."

He urged people to get vaccinated and wear masks during travel and called for efforts to discover potential loopholes in airport management.

Nanjing launched a second round of nucleic acid testing of its 9.3 million residents and people visiting the city on Sunday. It now has four high-risk areas and 25 medium-risk ones, according to the city government.

Suqian also declared a community a medium-risk area on Monday.

The Lukou subdistrict in Nanjing, where a cluster of COVID-19 cases has been confirmed, has launched a third round of nucleic acid testing. Nanjing's health commission said the city has set up 1,896 sample collection centers and 84 sample analyzing institutions capable of testing 7 million samples a day.

All passengers taking public transportation, including buses and subway trains, had to present a green QR health code from Monday.

Although no details were released for the virus discovered in Nanjing, an asymptomatic carrier in Luzhou, Sichuan province, was confirmed to be infected with the delta variant, which is highly homologous with the type found at the Nanjing airport, Luzhou's Information Office said on Monday.