Two officials were sacked on Sunday by authorities in the northern Chinese city of Xi’an, where the number of coronavirus cases is down following twelve days of confinement, according to official figures released on Monday.
• Read also: China welcomes drop in Xi’an cases
On Sunday evening, local authorities announced that two senior representatives of the Communist Party from Yanta district had been dismissed from their posts in order, according to local official media, to “strengthen the work of prevention and control of the epidemic” in the region. .
Last month, several dozen officials had already been sanctioned for “insufficient rigor in the prevention and control of the epidemic”.
Xi’an announced 90 new cases of coronavirus on Monday, up from 122 the day before, bringing the number of contaminations in the city to more than 1,600 since December 9.
“We launched a general attack,” provincial official Liu Guozhong said according to an official note, adding that it was necessary to rid society of the coronavirus as quickly as possible.
Xi’an, famous for its underground terracotta army, is the new epicenter of the pandemic in the country, which has led authorities to impose containment on the 13 million inhabitants and carry out extensive tracing operations.
China follows a “zero COVID” strategy with very severe border restrictions and targeted lockdowns as soon as cases arise, but this approach has not stopped local outbreaks.
Residents of Xi’an have said in recent days that they are struggling to find enough food, even though Chinese authorities insist they are working to secure supplies.
One month before the Winter Olympics in Beijing, China has recorded infection figures not seen since March 2020 in recent days, even though the number of cases remains low compared to other countries in the world.
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