Mass testing underway in Urumqi as virus flares

A medical worker from the Fourth People's Hospital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region collects a throat swab from a man at a residential community in Tianshan district, Urumqi, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on July 19, 2020. [Photo by Shi Yujiang/for chinadaily.com.cn]

Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has launched mass novel coronavirus screening and restricted the movement of its residents in response to a new outbreak that rose to 30 cases as of Saturday.

The city added 13 new locally transmitted cases on Saturday, down from 16 registered a day before. The first patient tested positive for the virus on Wednesday after no new local infections were reported across Xinjiang for nearly five months, according to local health authorities.

Nationwide, three other confirmed cases came from overseas and a total of 42 asymptomatic cases were reported on Saturday, the National Health Commission said on Sunday.

One of the imported confirmed cases and eight of the asymptomatic carriers are employees of China Petrochemical Corp, or Sinopec, the country's largest refiner and petrochemical producer. They arrived in Qingdao, Shandong province, from Kuwait on a chartered flight on Friday.

A total of 350 other passengers traveling on the same plane were identified and isolated for medical observation, according to Qingdao's health commission.