Epidemic in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province has further fermented as COVID-19 spreads to more nearby cities and counties beyond the capital city of Harbin over the weekend as the total positive COVID-19 infections rose to 40.
Since the first case was detected on September 21, 33 out of the 34 positive cases were confined within Harbin’s Bayan county and one case was in the urban district of Harbin. However, the detection of six more cases on Saturday was found to have spread to Harbin’s Mulan county, Songbei district and nearby Suihua county.
More than 10 people of the current group of positive cases have travel history to Suihua city, and close contacts of those that are infected had gone to weddings. All these factors increase the uncertainty of the epidemic resurgence.
Five more communities in Harbin were labelled as medium-risk regions for COVID-19.
At the wake of epidemic flare-ups, Harbin’s Bayan county required all residents to stay indoors starting from Sunday, further escalating measures to cut off virus spread. Daily necessities will be delivered to their doorsteps.
The anti-epidemic working group of the State Council dispatched experts to epidemic-affected regions, including Mulan county, Songbei district and Suihua city.
Ma Xiaowei, the head of the National Health Commission who is now in Heilongjiang, said the province should strive to confine the epidemic within the controlled areas prior to the National Day holiday and curb the virus spread.
Data from an outbreak model by epidemiologist Huang Senzhong of Nankai University shows that the epidemic is likely to end at the end of October and will be a medium scale outbreak, with the total infections remaining between 50-250. In the worst scenario, the outbreak scale could reach 600 cases due to some factors.
A medical worker collects swab samples for nucleic acid testing in Xinglong Town of Harbin, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, Sept. 23, 2021. Photo: Xinhua
