Some regions in China have again reported fresh coronavirus cases, causing the communist government to impose lockdown orders.
In what seems to be a second-wave of the Covid-19, several fresh cases have been reported from Shijiazhuang in Hebei province. Following the outbreak, the Chinese authorities have begun to construct large designated quarantine areas for medical observation amidst rising cases.
Reportedly, China has started construction of a medical isolation centre in Hebei province to help contain a severe COVID-19 outbreak. Covering an area of about 33 hectares, the centre will reportedly be used to isolate close contacts and secondary close contacts of confirmed coronavirus patients, according to the Chinese government mouthpiece Global Times.
Race against time! 33 hectares of wasteland was leveled overnight to build a centralized quarantine point with 3,000 rooms for epidemic control purposes in #Shijiazhuang, North China’s Hebei Province. pic.twitter.com/k59GWOvY4H
— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) January 15, 2021
As per reports, China has transferred more than 20 thousand people to these makeshift centres at Shijiazhuang in Hebei province after fresh cases emerged in the North China province.
In addition to the existing centre, a total of 3,000 makeshift wards are expected to be built in the centre, which will have room for several thousand people. More than 28 million people are already under lockdown in both Heilongjiang and Hebei provinces due to a recent surge in COVID-19 cases there.
The outbreak in China’s North and North-East is said to have originated in the coastal city of Dalian, where a series of local transmissions at the start of the year were traced back to infected cargo from Russia.
Meanwhile, China has reported the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases in more than 10 months on Friday, with a total of 144 new cases recorded on January 14, up from 138 cases a day earlier. China also recorded death in Hebei province yesterday, marking the first death from COVID-19 since mid-May.
Feng Zijian, deputy director of the China Centre for Disease Control (CDC), warned that the Hebei outbreak had been spreading faster than previous ones. The medical experts are also worried that the incubation period for the new strain is longer than previous outbreaks, with infections detected even after the recommended 14 days of isolation.
