A new outbreak of Covid-19 in Kashgar

A packaging company, which employs 300 people from different villages at origin of the latest outbreak of the epidemic. Four villages are at high risk of infection. As of yesterday morning, 164 new asymptomatic cases of infection were discovered. It is the first local transmission of the virus in the past 10 days, after the cases discovered in Qindao. Kashgar did not implement the full lockdown.

Urumqi (AsiaNews) - In Kashgar, western China, there is a new outbreak of Covid-19 cases, linked to a local packaging company. The Shuchang Garment Co. Ltd., is located in Shufu County where it produces clothes, curtains, sheets and blankets and employs about 300 people from nearby villages.

As of yesterday morning, 164 new asymptomatic cases of infection have been discovered, all related in some way to Shuchang. The first positive case was that of a 17-year-old girl. She works in another factory, but her parents work in the plant at the centre of the infection. On October 17, the girl had dinner with her parents in the company's dormitory.

A series of tests for the entire population of about 4.75 million have been underway for days in Kashgar. The new discovery represents the first local transmission of the virus in the past 10 days, after the cases discovered in Qindao. Until then, Chinese health authorities recorded sporadic cases of infection, all attributable to people returning to China from countries where the epidemic was widespread.

Kashgar also represents the beginning of a new wave of infections in Xinjiang, which had not registered positive cases since August, when the regional capital, Urumqi, was placed in total lockdown.

The new wave of both asymptomatic cases worries the health authorities because it makes prevention and control of the epidemic more difficult. The fact that Kashgar did not implement a full lockdown is also of note. However, the local government has indicated that four villages are at high risk of infection, including the one in which the packaging company is located.

• china
• economy
• covid-19
• pandemic
• hospitals
• test
• coronavirus
• kashgar
• qingdao
• wuhan