Sharp spike in China Covid cases including 22 in Xinjiang

Tuesday’s tally was sharply up from 16 on Monday, with all the 22 new local cases reported in the past 24 hours from the remote Xinjiang region’s Kashgar prefecture.

China has reported 42 new cases of Covid-19 including 22 local transmissions, recording the sharpest increase in several weeks, national health authorities said on Wednesday.

Women wearing face masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus walk along a street in Beijing on Wednesday. (AP)

Tuesday’s tally was sharply up from 16 on Monday, with all the 22 new local cases reported in the past 24 hours from the remote Xinjiang region’s Kashgar prefecture.

The national health commission (NHC) and Xinjiang health authorities said the local infections were asymptomatic cases that were re-categorised as confirmed ones.

All were reported in Shufu county of Kashgar, the Xinjiang health commission said, adding that 19 new asymptomatic cases were also reported on Tuesday.

By Tuesday night, the autonomous region had completed Covid-19 testing for all 4.75 million people in Kashgar following the recent local cases, state media reported.

Apart from the confirmed and asymptomatic cases, the remaining population had tested negative for the disease, Li Linyu from the Kashgar prefectural health commission told a press conference.

Li said investigations have shown the new cases have no relation to the cluster in the regional capital of Urumqi in July and source tracing for the new cases in Shufu was underway.

An official from the prefecture told the tabloid Global Times that none of the asymptomatic patients had any contact with cold-chain products or with wild animals.

A virologist told the tabloid that it is not certain if the virus that caused the Kashgar outbreak was local or imported.

“More epidemiological surveys need to be done to find out, such as contact with people from other countries, or international flights,” the tabloid reported.

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

Altogether 80,936 patients had been discharged after recovery, and 4,634 had died of the disease on the mainland, the NHC said in its daily report on Wednesday.