COVID-19 situation stable over Spring Festival

Although the overall situation in relation to pandemic prevention and control was stable in China during the Spring Festival holiday, there were still some clusters of locally transmitted COVID-19 infections in some areas, the State Council's joint pandemic prevention and control authorities said on Tuesday.

These regional clusters were all dealt with quickly and effectively, with some already under control.

The authorities are also urging relevant areas to implement "scientific and precise pandemic prevention and control measures" during the travel rush after the weeklong holiday.

The situation in Beijing and Tianjin has almost been controlled.

But in Heihe, in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, seven new cases have been reported and the Omicron variant has been detected.

Since this cluster was triggered by an imported case and the patients were socially active before being diagnosed, there is some risk of spreading.

An Omicron-related cluster in Shenzhen in southern Guangdong Province has impacted nine cities in Guangdong and Hunan provinces, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Currently, the situation in areas including Guangdong's Yunfu, Huizhou, Meizhou and Heyuan is stable.

On Sunday, Shenzhen reported two new local cases, which indicated the risk of spreading.

The number of infections in Guangxi's city of Baise is rising quickly with nearly 80 percent of the infected living in the same village.

Guangxi reported 64 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, all in Baise, on Monday, according to the regional health commission. Guangxi has logged 108 locally transmitted cases and four local asymptomatic infections in the latest resurgence, the regional health commission said on Tuesday, adding that a total of 815 close contacts are currently under medical observation.

The Baise cluster has affected Guangxi's Nanning and Guangdong's Guangzhou. Hunan Province's Shaoyang, which was also affected by the Baise cluster, has reported one case.

By Monday, the total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered on the Chinese mainland had reached more than 3.01 billion.