China's sporadic outbreaks controllable, health official says

The recent sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks in China are generally controllable and the possibility of a large-scale outbreak at the national level is relatively small, said He Qinghua, an official with the National Health Commission.

The country has seen several clusters recently. As of Thursday, 48 cities in 18 provinces have reported a cumulative 1,282 cases. Among the 48 cities, 36 have reported zero infections for more than five consecutive days. With the exception of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, Wuhan in Hubei province and Zhangjiajie in Hunan province, other cities have only sporadic new cases, He said at a news conference in Beijing on Friday.

He said the National Health Commission and Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention will continue stringent prevention measures, strengthen nucleic acid testing and community control and restrict the outflow of people.

Provinces should also enhance health monitoring to screen potentially infected people in a timely manner, he said.

High-risk areas including port cities, airports, harbors, designated hospitals and quarantine sites should also carry out comprehensive investigation to plug loopholes and take timely measures to avoid new imported cases, he added.