China reports 42 new confirmed COVID-19 cases

Beijing, October 28

China has reported 42 new COVID-19 cases, including 22 from Kashgar prefecture in Xinjiang province where all the 4.74 million people underwent tests following the detection of a villager as an asymptomatic carrier, the health authorities said on Wednesday.

This comes a day after the Kashgar prefecture reported 183 coronavirus cases after the completion of COVID-19 tests for all the residents in the region, according to official media reports.

Of the news cases, 22 infections were reported in Kashgar’s Shufu County, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday.

The local health authorities said an epidemiological survey for virus tracing is still under way and the medical expert team has so far ruled out a connection between Kashgar and the epidemic in the regional capital of Urumqi in July.

On October 24, a 17-year-old female villager from Shufu County was confirmed as an asymptomatic carrier of the virus during a routine nucleic acid testing.

The detection led to mass testing across the prefecture, and over 130 people tested positive the following day, all related to a local factory where the parents of the female villager work.

The Commission on Wednesday said that 570 asymptomatic cases, including 408 from outside the mainland, were still under medical observation.

By the end of Tuesday, a total of 3,284 imported cases were reported on the mainland, it said.

Of these cases, 267 still remained hospitalised. No deaths have been reported from the imported cases, it said.

As of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the Chinese mainland reached 85,868. Of them, 298 patients were still being treated, including four in severe condition.

Altogether, 80,936 patients have been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 patients have died of the disease on the mainland, the Commission said. PTI