China battles new coronavirus outbreak in Xinjiang

BEIJING: The number of confirmed cases in a new coronavirus outbreak in China’s far western region of Xinjiang has risen to 17.

The National Health Commission said on Saturday that 16 more cases were identified in the previous 24 hours in the region, on top of the first case.

The outbreak in the city of Urumqi is the latest to pop up since China largely contained the domestic spread of the virus in March. The largest was a recent outbreak in Beijing that infected more than 330 people.

Authorities in Urumqi have reduced subways, buses and taxis and closed off some residential communities, according to Chinese media reports. They also placed restrictions on people leaving the city, including a suspension of subway service to the airport.

As of Friday, mainland China had 83,644 confirmed coronavirus cases, the health authority said. The COVID-19 death toll remained at 4,634.

China has been accused of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the homeland of the largely Muslim Uighur ethnic community. The region has long been blanketed with extreme security.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region, South Korea reported 39 newly confirmed infections of COVID-19, most of them cases imported from abroad.

The figures announced by South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought the national caseload to 13,711, including 294 deaths.

The KCDC says at least 28 cases were tied to overseas arrivals. Eighteen others came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which had been at the center of a virus resurgence that began in late May as restrictions eased.

Health authorities have expressed optimism that the outbreak is being brought under control. They said imported cases of COVID-19 are less threatening than local transmissions because the country is mandating testing and enforcing two-week quarantines on people arriving from abroad.