BEIJING (AP) – Shanghai has imposed closures on two of China’s best-known hospitals after linking them to new coronavirus cases.
Outpatient services have been suspended at Shanghai Fudan University Cancer Center and Renji Hospital. They have been cordoned off, along with some surrounding residential communities.
After months of suffocating small clusters with massive testing, isolation and social distancing, China has seen outbreaks grow this winter, mainly in its freezing cold. On Friday, the National Health Commission announced that 103 new cases had been detected in the past 24 hours.
Closures have also been imposed in some parts of Beijing and other cities after the outbreaks, schools are leaving soon and citizens have said they will stay home during next month’s lunar New Year holidays. China expects to vaccinate 50 million people against the virus by mid-February.
Shanghai reported six of the cases on Friday. The two hospitals were closed after suspicious cases were found on Wednesday and Thursday. It is not immediately clear if there are any additional cases related to hospitals.
Heilongjiang province in the far north reported 47 new cases, followed by Jilin in the south with 19 and Hebei province on the outskirts of Beijing with 18. Beijing itself reported three new cases.
Chinese hospitals are currently treating 1,674 patients with COVID-19, of whom 80 are in serious condition, while another 929 are under observation to test positive without showing any symptoms.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region,
– South Korea has reported its smallest daily increase in coronavirus infections in two months, as officials express a cautious hope that the country will begin to emerge from its worst pandemic wave. The 346 new cases reported by the Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency on Friday raised the number of national cases to 74,262, including 1,328 deaths. The agency said 240 of the new infections came from the large area of Seoul, where half of the country’s 51 million people live, which was the hardest hit during a wave of transmissions that began in mid-November. Health authorities have been holding back private social gatherings since late December, including fines at restaurants that accepted numerous groups of diners. After a maximum of 1,241 Christmas days, new daily infections have slowed to between 400 and 600 in recent weeks and officials eased some of the rules of social distancing.
– Myanmar on Friday received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccine, a gift of 1.5 million doses from India. The vaccine was developed by Oxford University and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca and was produced under license in India. India has begun shipping vaccine supplies to several countries, including neighboring Bangladesh, which received two million doses. Vaccine delivery to India comes after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi promised last week during a visit to Myanmar a donation of 300,000 doses of his vaccine. The gifts of India and China are examples of what has been called vaccine diplomacy in a country where the two powers compete strongly to influence. On Thursday, Myanmar’s Ministry of Health announced 446 new coronavirus cases along with 16 new deaths. A total of 136,166 cases have been reported, including 3,013 deaths. “In the coming weeks, we will have another batch of vaccines from other countries. Some of them we bought, ”said public health official Tun Myint. The Indian embassy said Myanmar signed an agreement with vaccine producer Serum Institute of India to get additional doses.