Coronavirus: Xian officials sacked over handling of outbreak as cases fall below 100

Wang Bin and Cui Shiyue – senior figures in the city’s worst-hit district – were removed from their posts to ‘strengthen’ the battle
It comes as locked down residents have complained of food shortages, and as the number of local infections are going down

Coronavirus China

Zhao Ziwen

Published: 3:31pm, 3 Jan 2022

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Two senior officials have been sacked over their handling of an ongoing Covid-19 outbreak in the northwest Chinese city of Xian, where locked down residents have complained about food shortages.

It comes as the daily case number in the city of 13 million – known for its Terracotta Warriors – dropped below 100 for the first time since December 24.

The two officials removed from their posts on Sunday were both senior figures in Yanta, the worst-hit district in the city. They were Wang Bin, Communist Party secretary of the district committee, and his deputy Cui Shiyue, who was also secretary of the district’s leading party group, according to state-run People’s Daily.

It said the decision was made by the Shaanxi provincial party committee to “further strengthen epidemic prevention and control in the Yanta district of Xian”.

Just over a week ago, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said 26 city officials would be punished over their response to the outbreak, including mismanaging a quarantine hotel. The outbreak, which began on December 9, has been linked to a case on a flight from Pakistan.

Across China, 101 new local infections were reported on Sunday, 90 of them in Xian. The city has reported 1,663 local cases since the outbreak began, the National Health Commission said on Monday.

Xian has been locked down since December 23, with other strict measures imposed including mandatory testing and travel curbs. But residents have complained that they have struggled to get hold of food and other necessities – many cannot leave their homes unless they are going to get tested or for other approved reasons, meaning they are relying on deliveries.

Officials have said the problem is a shortage of workers to make the deliveries and that they are working to get supplies to residents.

However, an expert with China’s disease control agency on Sunday said the situation in Xian was improving and that restrictions could soon be eased.

Zhang Canyou, who was sent to Shaanxi province by the State Council, China’s cabinet, told official news agency Xinhua that “some adjustments to prevention and control measures [will be made] in due course”.

Volunteers make deliveries at a community in Xian, Shaanxi province on Wednesday. Some locked down residents have complained of food shortages. Photo: Xinhua

But provincial officials on Sunday stressed that the tough measures would continue for now to contain the outbreak.

“Now that we have entered the ‘general attack phase’ against the virus … we must make prevention and control in urban neighbourhoods a top priority and achieve the goal of zero social transmission as soon as possible,” Shaanxi party secretary Liu Guozhong said.

Local transmission was still a concern, according to Chen Baozhong, head of Xian’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. “Data from the recent rounds of testing suggests there is still a certain percentage of cases being detected in the community, and the risk of community transmission still exists,” he said.

A new round of mass testing began in hotspots like Yanta district on Monday – the seventh round of large-scale screening in Xian since December 21.

Elsewhere in Shaanxi province, there was one local case reported in Xianyang and one in Yanan on Sunday. Nine local infections were also reported in Ningbo, in the eastern province of Zhejiang. The country has reported more than 102,000 cases since the start of the pandemic.