China Warns Firms, Citizens vs Infection With New COVID-19 Strain

China's latest COVID-19 outbreak is increasingly likely to spread further, a health official said, as authorities urged all regions to step up monitoring and called for a reduction in travel across provinces, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Photo Insert: China is already propelling its vaccination program among minors aged between 12 and 17

China has largely contained the virus but it is determined to stamp out any sporadic local outbreaks, particularly in the run-up to the 2022 Winter Olympics in February. More than 100 locally transmitted cases have been confirmed over the last week across 11 provincial areas, with most linked to 13 different tour groups.

There is increasing risk that the outbreak might spread further, helped by "seasonal factors," Mi Feng, spokesman at the National Health Commission, told reporters on Sunday.

The Delta variant causing the outbreak is also highly transmissible, said commission deputy director Wu Liangyou, adding that sequencing showed it to be different from the source of an earlier outbreak, and suggesting that the new cases came from a new source from abroad, Channel News Asia (CNA) also reported.

Authorities have banned travel agencies from arranging cross-provincial tours that involve regions deemed of higher virus risk, and have imposed nationwide suspension on some travel services linking multiple tourist attractions.

The capital Beijing has said it will impose strict restrictions on travel to the city by people who have been to counties with at least one infection. Health authorities also said on Sunday that about 75.6 percent of China's population had received complete vaccine doses as of Saturday, or about 1.068 billion people.

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