Director of big data bureau in Xi'an suspended over poor performance

Liu Jun, director and Party chief of the big data resources management bureau in the city of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, has been suspended from his duties over poor performance, local authorities said on Wednesday.

Liu Xin, at the same time, has been nominated the new deputy head of the bureau, according to the city's organization department.

The announcement was made after the city's health code system, the essential identification method for medical screening during pandemic control, crashed again on Tuesday after it broke down on December 20 due to excessive traffic.

Xi'an launched a new round of citywide nucleic acid testing on Tuesday morning, but many residents found the health code system didn't work properly when they tried to have their QR code scanned before undergoing testing.

The system gradually returned to normal in the afternoon, Xinhua news agency reported.

The locked-down ancient city with a population of 13 million people reported 35 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, and it has registered a total of 1,793 local cases since December 9.