China sends 70,000 Communist Party workers to help city stricken by Covid-19

Name: Covid-19 Delta variant cluster spreads in China’s eastern Jiangsu province
Uploaded: 2021-08-12T04:37:48.000Z
Duration: 1 min 56 s
Description: Covid-19 Delta variant cluster spreads in China’s eastern Jiangsu province

Vice-premier Sun Chunlan warns the situation in Yangzhou is not yet under control and calls for stricter measures

City reports 37 new infections on Thursday, bringing its total cases in the latest outbreak to 485

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Thousands of Communist Party members have been sent to Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, eastern China, where an outbreak of Covid-19 is not yet under control. Photo: Xinhua

Holly Chik

Published: 12:37pm, 12 Aug 2021Updated: 5:13pm, 12 Aug 2021

China is mobilising massive resources to stop the spread of the coronavirus in an eastern city, where Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan warned the situation was not yet under control, according to a state media report on Thursday.

“We should take more resolute and decisive acts and ensure Covid-19 control measures are in place to contain virus transmission as soon as possible,” she said on Wednesday, during an inspection of Yangzhou, the country’s latest pandemic hotspot.

According to state news agency Xinhua, Sun asked local authorities to strictly enforce quarantine for high-risk communities and to protect nursing homes, while completing contact tracing on people at risk should within 24 hours. Testing stations should also be better managed to avoid large crowds from gathering.

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Covid-19 Delta variant cluster spreads in China’s eastern Jiangsu province

Eight Yangzhou officials were investigated and warned for mismanaging a Covid-19 testing station which led to more than 40 people being infected. “Substandard set-up and chaotic on-site organisation have caused many people who were in close contact with [a Covid-19 patient] at the test site to be infected, leading to adverse impacts on society,” the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said.

At least 60 officials across the country have been dismissed, warned or investigated since late July after failing to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks, local media reported.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, the Guangdong Commission for Discipline Inspection said on Thursday 20 officials had been dismissed, demoted and warned over their role in fighting a month-long outbreak which started in May. The director and party secretary of the Guangzhou Health Commission was dismissed, while a deputy city mayor was given an “intraparty warning and administrative demerit”.

Yangzhou reported 37 new infections on Thursday, bringing its total tally in the latest outbreak to 485 cases.