China reports 3,300 new Covid-19 cases, highest in two years

The country is battling its worst outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic.

China reported more than 3,300 Covid-19 infections on Saturday as the country faces its worst outbreak since the early days of the pandemic and officials step up efforts to stem the spread.

Health workers tests for Covid outside of a clothing market in Shanghai, China. (Bloomberg)

There were 1,807 confirmed local infections and 1,315 asymptomatic local cases, the National Health Commission said on Sunday. The northeastern province of Jilin accounted for more than 2,100 cases.

The country also reported more than 200 imported cases.

China is grappling with new domestic infections that are jumping at a rate not seen since the peak of the outbreak in Wuhan, the virus’s first epicenter. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan on Saturday vowed to take stringent measures to stem regional clusters and urged officials to roll out rapid antigen tests on top of nucleic acid testing to keep up with omicron’s spread. The country should “resolutely hold the bottom line of avoiding resurgence of scale,” she said.

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Regional governments are stepping up efforts to contain the spread of the virus in their areas. Shanghai has required people to provide negative nucleic acid test results within last 48 hours if they want to leave or enter the city, according to a statement released by the municipal government late Saturday.

Guangdong province in the south removed six officials from their posts, including a deputy chief of the provincial public security department, for a cluster outbreak in Dongguan city on March 1, the Beijing Daily reported.