Chinese city of Qingdao punishes two officials over COVID-19 cluster
15 October, 2020
The Chinese city of Qingdao said on Thursday (Oct 15) it had suspended its health commission head and sacked a hospital director following an outbreak of coronavirus infections that ended China's run of about two months without reporting an area case.
The coastal city has reported 13 recent infections, most of them from the Qingdao Chest Hospital, where infected travelers arriving from overseas had been treated within an isolation area.
Among the cases involved a dock worker who had earlier tested positive for the virus but only developed symptoms after about 20 days, the location said.
Qingdao announced this week that it could test most of its 9 million residents for the virus over a five-day period. A lot more than 7 million results had keep coming back by Thursday morning, without infections beyond those reported, it said.
The novel coronavirus first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late this past year.
After the early missteps, China has taken aggressive measures to curb its spread, including mass testing campaigns when clusters appear and have been able to practically stamp out the domestic transmission.
The full total number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in mainland China stands at 85,622, with 4,634 deaths.
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