The top official at a Chinese university has been sacked after dozens of people were infected by an outbreak at a student residence in the northeastern city of Jilin. Zhang Lifeng, the Communist Party secretary and top manager of the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University, was dismissed on Thursday afternoon, Jilin provincial party committee said in a terse notice that did not state the reason. The local health commission has announced that 57 people had tested positive at an unnamed university residence on Tuesday. They did not name the site in question, but said it was in the city’s Jiuzhan neighbourhood, where the agricultural university, which has around 13,500 staff and students, is located. All of them were also listed as close contacts of a “dormitory resident at a science and technology university” who tested positive on Sunday at a hospital. Chinese firm signs deal with Pfizer to supply Covid-19 pill Although the country’s caseload is tiny by global comparison, China is sticking to its “dynamic zero-Covid” playbook where local authorities scramble to identify and quarantine every infection and their close contacts quickly, and curb movement to cut transmission. Officials’ failure to perform has often led to dismissals. Jilin province was the largest source of the 402 symptomatic local cases China reported for Wednesday, nearly double the previous day’s count. Jilin accounted for 165 such cases and logged its highest daily count since China contained its first national outbreak in early 2020. It also reported 179 asymptomatic infections. China’s National Health Commission also said 435 new asymptomatic infections were found in the community – close to a two-year high. Mainland China does not classify these cases as confirmed. In a post that has since gone viral, a Weibo user who said they were a student at the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University said some students had been told to isolate in their rooms and others taken to a library and teaching block to isolate together. The user posted a video clip showing bedding laid out on about 20 tables that were not separated by partitions, surrounded by bookshelves. The post also said there was shortage of water and sanitary pads, and that some students isolating in their rooms had had their doors taped shut and were not even allowed to go to the toilet. The veracity of the claims and the video could not be independently verified, but the setting of the video matched photos of the library’s interior published by the library’s verified Weibo account. The poster did not respond to requests for an interview on Thursday. State broadcaster CCTV also reported that 30 coaches had arrived at the university in the afternoon to bus away the close contacts and secondary close contacts of people who tested positive for the coronavirus. Without going into details of the university’s Covid-19 response, Jilin province Communist Party secretary Jing Junhai told a videoconference with his anti-epidemic work force: “We should focus on tertiary institutions, especially core institutions such as Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University. Beijing finds 6 local Covid-19 cases, Guangdong has 22 from Hong Kong “We must implement strict transport, isolation measures and treatment to ensure the health and safety of teachers and students.” Residents of Jilin city, the second largest in the province and home to 3.6 million people, had their fifth round of mass testing since the start of the current outbreak on Thursday. They have also been banned for leaving their homes for a week until Sunday, except for medical or other urgent reasons. One person from each household is allowed to go out each day to shop for necessities. A sub-strain of Omicron has been found in the city, the hardest hit area in the province’s latest outbreak. Business operations in the city’s urban areas have been closed for a week, with exceptions made for essential service providers and businesses requiring continuous production. China points to Omicron and high vaccination for rising asymptomatic rate As of Wednesday, China had reported 112,385 cases with confirmed symptoms, including local ones and those arriving from outside the mainland. The death toll remained unchanged at 4,636, the National Health Commission said on Thursday. Additional reporting by Reuters