THE construction of a centralized medical observation center started Wednesday in Shijiazhuang, capital of North China’s Hebei Province, where clustered COVID-19 cases occurred.

Ma Shaohai, a project manager with China Railway 14th Bureau Group Co. Ltd., said the company mobilized more than 100 people after receiving the order for the construction project at 11 a.m. Wednesday. They were aided by dozens of types of machinery to carry out the work.

The isolation center will likely cover 33 hectares of area near a village in Zhengding County, Shijiazhuang.

Three integrated housing producers in Tangshan City, Hebei, have been entrusted to produce 3,000 makeshift wards for the center. Each ward has a space of 18 square meters.

The Chinese mainland Wednesday reported 138 newly confirmed COVID cases, of whom 124 were locally transmitted and the rest arrived from outside the mainland, the National Health Commission said Thursday.

Of the locally transmitted cases, 81 were reported in Hebei Province and 43 in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, the commission said in its daily report.

Hebei reported 47 new locally transmitted confirmed cases between midnight Wednesday and 10 a.m. Thursday, Vice Governor Xu Jianpei said Thursday.

Several regions in Northeast China’s Jilin Province have suspended in-person classes at kindergartens, after-school training institutions and youth activity centers due to outbreaks in parts of the country.

Authorities in the cities of Changchun, Baicheng and Baishan, and the prefecture of Yanbian encouraged online training and banned any forms of in-person classes attended by local teachers and students.

Primary and middle school students in Jilin started their winter vacation early this month.

Hebei and Liaoning provinces have postponed their annual provincial legislative meetings.

According to the Standing Committee of the Hebei Provincial People’s Congress, the annual session of the provincial legislature was postponed pending further notice.

The meeting was originally scheduled Jan. 25 in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital that has reported the bulk of the recent COVID-19 cases in Hebei.

The Standing Committee of the Liaoning Provincial People’s Congress also said in an announcement that the provincial legislative meeting will be slated for a later date. (Xinhua)