China reports first local COVID-19 cases in more than 3 weeks

Mainland China reported seven new COVID-19 cases on May 13, including its first local transmissions in more than three weeks, the country’s national health authority said on Friday.

Two of the new cases were local infections in the eastern province of Anhui, the National Health Commission said in a statement. The cases were the first local transmissions since April 20, when China recorded two local infections in the southwestern province of Yunnan, where a city on the border with Myanmar reported a new cluster in late March. China’s official Xinhua news agency reported that one of the local cases, surnamed Li, had travelled to Anhui on May 1 from Dalian, a port city in China’s northeastern Liaoning province. The other case, surnamed Zhang, was in close contact with Li during a training class Li led in the city of Luan, near Anhui’s provincial capital Hefei, Xinhua reported.

A medical worker in a protective suit collects a swab sample from a middle school student during a mass nucleic acid testing following a recent COVID-19 outbreak in Xingtai