Coronavirus: officials punished as China races to contain Inner Mongolia outbreak

Still no sign of Omicron but health expert says country should keep up zero-Covid strategy

Manzhouli says four officials were disciplined for failing to stop disease spreading as city reports 30 new Delta cases, down from 58 a day earlier

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Manzhouli in Inner Mongolia reported 30 new cases on Saturday. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 3:11pm, 5 Dec 2021Updated: 7:22pm, 5 Dec 2021

The northern Chinese border city of Manzhouli reported 30 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, down from 58 community cases a day earlier.

The National Health Commission said on Sunday that mainland China reported 42 new locally transmitted cases overall, including 10 in Harbin, in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang province, and two in Yunnan province in the southwest.

The outbreak in Manzhouli, a city in Inner Mongolia, started at the end of last month and had grown to 314 cases as of 2pm on Saturday, according to city authorities.

Four local officials have been punished for their failure to contain the spread of the virus, with one reported to have “greatly affected” zero-Covid efforts to eradicate the pathogen, the city said.

The strain at the centre of the outbreak is the Delta variant and the city has embarked on a seventh round of mass testing in freezing conditions.

However, the emergence of the Omicron variant, which has yet to be detected in China, poses a new threat to China’s zero Covid-19 policy.

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