China's Chengdu Detects 4 New COVID-19 Cases Amid Fresh Local Outbreak

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th December, 2020) Authorities in the city of Chengdu in western China's Sichuan province identified four new COVID-19 patients on Thursday, after conducting polymerase chain reaction tests for the close contacts of the first case, which triggered the recent outbreak, for a second time, a top local health official said during a press conference.

"[From December 9-10] during the second round of testing of the close contacts who have been placed under quarantine, Pidu District [in Chengdu] detected four more positive [COVID-19] cases. Two of them were confirmed COVID-19 patients and another two were asymptomatic patients," Xie Qiang, the Director of Chengdu Center of Disease Control, said.

China lists asymptomatic cases separately in its official COVID-19 case counts.

According to Xie, Chengdu has completed 1.02 million COVID-19 tests after the first patient was confirmed to be infected on Monday.

Before the press conference, local authorities in Chengdu designated two more local communities as areas with "medium risks," which meant residents in the area were not allowed to leave without permission.

As of Thursday, Chengdu has identified eight confirmed COVID-19 patients and three asymptomatic cases after the recent outbreak in the city.