XIANYOU County in the city of Putian, East China’s Fujian Province, has classified Fengting Township as a COVID-19 high-risk area after new local infections were reported.

As of 4 p.m. yesterday, Putian had reported 32 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, mostly in Xianyou County. The city also has 32 locally transmitted asymptomatic carriers, according to the Putian government.

The first two detected cases were students from a family in Xianyou but experts suspect that the outbreak may be caused by a patient who recently returned to Putian from Singapore.

The patient surnamed Lin, a father of a student, came back from Singapore on Aug. 4. Lin had undergone 14-day quarantine in Xiamen and a seven-day home health monitoring during which Lin took nine nucleic acid and serologic tests, all were negative. However, he tested positive Friday.

The COVID-19 response headquarters of Xianyou has advised residents to work from home and wear masks on public transportation, and has banned large gatherings.

The operation of the county’s indoor entertainment venues such as museums and movie theaters have been suspended. Also, customer flow has been restricted in supermarkets and other essential services providers, according to the headquarters.

The city government of Putian reported the viral genome sequencing of 19 relevant cases in the outbreak has preliminarily identified the strains as the highly infectious Delta variant.

(Xinhua)