Heilongjiang reports 53 COVID-19 cases, with three new high-risk areas

Heilongjiang province recorded 53 new locally transmitted confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 24 asymptomatic carriers on Monday, the provincial health commission said on Tuesday.

The province named three new high-risk areas on Tuesday－a subdistrict in Harbin, its provincial capital, and two villages in Hailun, a county-level city in Suihua near Harbin. Together with Wangkui county, also in Suihua, the province now has four out of the nine high-risk areas in the country.

As of Tuesday, all of the high-risk areas were in the north of the country－in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Hebei provinces and Beijing.

From Jan 10 to Monday, Heilongjiang recorded 464 confirmed cases and 511 asymptomatic carriers, with Wangkui county and Harbin the two major areas affected.

To contain the virus, Harbin has conducted mass nucleic acid testing in its downtown areas since Thursday evening. It had collected 4 million samples by 3 pm Monday, and nearly 2.5 million have received test results, said Luan Feng, deputy director of Harbin's health commission.

Neighboring Jilin province recorded seven local confirmed cases on Monday, driving the caseload to 280. One death was reported, which is the first from the recent outbreak, according to the provincial health commission.

"The 87-year-old woman, who tested positive on Jan 14, had some underlying chronic diseases, including heart disease and high blood pressure," Wang Yongjie, a member of the provincial medical team treating COVID-19 patients in Tonghua, said on Tuesday. "Despite all efforts from the national and provincial experts, she passed away on Monday due to respiratory failure."

Tonghua has been heavily affected by an outbreak that had 202 confirmed cases and 58 asymptomatic carriers as of Monday. Among those, 32 are in serious condition.

"A high proportion of the patients are seniors with some chronic diseases, which may lead to an increase of patients in serious condition," Wang said.

Sun Xiaoting, head of the city's commerce bureau, said: "As of Monday night, a total of 113,024 packages of vegetables had been delivered to residents in home quarantine, which could basically meet their daily needs. More online platforms have been opened for residents' diverse needs."

A 52-year-old man in Tonghua's Dongchang district said people had not been allowed to leave the residential community where he lives since Jan 17.

"I first bought a five-kilogram package of vegetables for 100 yuan ($15) and yesterday I received the care package from the government at a price of 40 yuan," he said. "With some previous food reserves, I didn't encounter many difficulties during the past days."

Hebei province recorded only five new confirmed COVID-19 cases and two asymptomatic carriers on Monday, the first day with a single-digit rise for confirmed patients since Jan 4, the Hebei Provincial Health Commission said on Tuesday morning.

Over 130 confirmed patients and 91 asymptomatic carriers have been discharged from hospitals in Shijiazhuang after recovering.

In Beijing, two new local cases were detected on Monday－both from Ronghui residential community in southern Daxing district, where recent cases have been found.

Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Tuesday that the two cases had received nucleic acid tests several times, with all results negative before the confirmed COVID-19 infections on Monday.

Han Junhong in Changchun,Zhang Yu in Shijiazhuang and Du Juan in Beijing contributed to this story.