Ningxia holds the 20th press conference on COVID-19

On Sept 24, the team responding to COVID-19 of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region held its 20th press conference.

Ningxia holds the 20th press conference on COVID-19 [Photo by Zhao Xiaoling and Hu Xinyu]

Ruan Yuesheng, deputy director of the Health Commission of the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, introduced that the recent infections were related to Omicron subvariants BA.5.2 and BA.2.76, and the coexistence of these two sub-variants had been established. The latest outbreak of the virus had been concealed for a period of time. Measures, including tracking high-risk personnel and isolation, were introduced as soon as possible once the cluster of cases was found.

Ruan Yuesheng introduces the latest outbreak of the pandemic in Ningxia [Photo by Zhao Xiaoling and Hu Xinyu]

At present, the majority of cases have been found in Zhongning, accounting for 70% of total cases. Each positive case had been exposed directly or indirectly to the Zhongning goji berry market. The cases found in other areas account for about 30% of the total, and the majority of them had been to Zhongning. The source of infection is still unclear. The majority of positive cases have no obvious connections, except for the location history. The number of positive results in the third-round of nucleic acid testing, however, has continued to rise, which shows the uncertainty and risk of the further spread of COVID-19.

Now is the key period for containing the spread of COVID-19 in Ningxia. The local government has been working on emergency response, regional isolation, cases tracking, nucleic acid testing, medical treatment, living services and information updates.