China COVID-19 Spreading Rapidly, May Threaten Winter Olympics

China's latest COVID-19 outbreak is developing rapidly, a health official said, as the authorities demanded high vigilance at ports of entry amid growing infections in a northeastern border city caused by the virus arriving from abroad, Roxanne Liu, Andrew Galbraith, and Winni Zhou reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Chinese President Xi Jinping talks with national athletes and coaches at the country's National Alpine Skiing Center in Yanquing, Beijing

Some 377 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were reported from Oct. 17-29, National Health Commission (NHC) data showed. China has tackled a series of outbreaks this year since it largely contained a national spread in early 2020.

China cannot afford to have the virus affect participants in the Winter Olympics that Beijing will host in February 2022.

"Within the past 14 days, 14 provincial areas have reported new locally transmitted cases of asymptomatic carriers," the NHC spokesperson Mi Feng said on Saturday. "The outbreak is still developing rapidly, and the virus control situation is severe and complicated."

Heihe, a small northeastern city of 1.3 million people that lies on China's side of the Amur River on the border with Russia, reported 26 local cases for Oct. 29, a sharp increase from nine on Oct. 28 and just one on Oct. 27.

"The outbreak has exposed the laxity of mind among some local authorities," Wu Liangyou, another NHC official, said.

Surveys and virus sequencing results showed the cluster in Heihe was unrelated to an ongoing outbreak hitting mainly the northwestern parts of China, indicating that there was a new source of virus brought from overseas, Wu said.

Many local infections found in the north and northwest parts of China since Oct. 17 could be traced back to a source of virus brought in from overseas, the NHC said last week. China's border towns, many with relatively few resources, have tended to suffer more severe disruptions than richer cities amid the outbreaks.

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