|
A citizen receives a dose of COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site
in Hefei, East China's Anhui province, May 16, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua] Since the country's first confirmed case of COVID-19 in more than
three weeks was reported on May 13, medical workers and volunteers have
conducted all-out efforts to contain the latest outbreak. By Tuesday afternoon, Anhui province had reported seven confirmed
cases and seven asymptomatic cases, while Liaoning province had 13
confirmed cases and five asymptomatic cases, according to news
conferences in the regions. Liaoning reported no new cases on Tuesday,
while Lu'an in Anhui reported one asymptotic case. Thousands of local medical workers and volunteers have concentrated
on massive nucleic acid testing, vaccination and helping people who are
quarantined. In Yingkou, Liaoning, where 1,788 people were quarantined by the end
of Monday, 52 teams of volunteers made more than 8,000 contactless
deliveries of daily necessities, said Zhang Xianbin, vice-mayor of
Yingkou. To ensure that the city was safe from a further outbreak, the
municipal government of Shenyang, the provincial capital, declared on
Tuesday afternoon the expansion of testing to areas beyond where the
current four cases were found, with the support of over 1,400 medical
workers. Tong Mingming, a nurse in Hefei, the capital of Anhui, said that
after administering hundreds of doses of vaccines to residents, she was
very tired but would continue to work. Tong had planned to take a vacation recently, since she had worked throughout the recent five-day May Day holiday. However, she was kept on duty after the new cases were found in the city's Feixi county and the neighboring city of Lu'an. Epidemic prevention and control authorities learned by tracking of
the cases that they were related to two women who had traveled to
Yingkou, and the city responded immediately. Wei Sheng, an expert from the Wuhan-based Huazhong University of
Science and Technology in Hubei province, said in a China Central
Television report on Monday that the outbreak probably began in the
middle of April, and authorities were still looking for the earliest
case. As the spread of the virus had been well contained in Hefei, which
locked down only one hotel, the city has conducted an all-out
vaccination effort, said Wang Wensong, the city's vice-mayor. Yaohai district, where nurse Tong works, administered 50,000 doses of
vaccine in just five days, according to the local government. Zhang Xiaofeng, deputy director of Hefei's health commission, said on
Friday that the city itself had been able to provide 200,000 doses each
day. On Saturday, he said that 364,100 people had been vaccinated on
Friday. There were enough vaccines to go around and people should remain
calm, he said. Recalling the situation in early 2020, Tong, the nurse, said she
feels safer working at the front line "because we are now more
experienced in handling the situation and protected by the vaccines".
| 
Related News
