Party officials sacked in Inner Mongolia as local Covid-19 outbreak continues
- The northern Chinese region again accounts for half of the country’s new symptomatic cases
- Wuhan, the pandemic’s initial epicentre, also reports new cases, which are said to be linked to a company’s staff training session
The ongoing outbreak prompted the dismissal of Wang Zhiqiang as secretary of the party committee of the disease control and prevention centre in Hohhot. He Lingling and Wen Yan, respectively deputy heads of the Hohhot districts of Tumut Zuoqi and Saihan, were also removed from their posts.
The northern region accounted for nearly half of the 85 local symptomatic cases that were announced nationally on Thursday. The authorities also announced 24 local asymptomatic cases and 189 imported cases, of which 101 were symptomatic.
Of Inner Mongolia’s 40 symptomatic cases, Hohhot, the region’s capital, accounted for 37, in a repeat of Wednesday, when Inner Mongolia – mostly in Hohhot – had also made up half of the national symptomatic case count.
As of Thursday, Hohhot had reported a total of 260 local symptomatic cases in its latest outbreak, and identified almost 15,000 people classed as close or secondary contacts.