The Chinese mainland on Tuesday reported 91 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, all in Inner Mongolia, the National Health Commission said in its daily report on Wednesday.
Also reported were 22 new imported cases in six provincial-level regions, according to the commission.
The latest coronavirus flare-up in the border city Manzhouli, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was caused by contaminated imported goods based on initial investigations, Manzhouli authorities said at Tuesday's press briefing.
The full genomic sequence of the first three confirmed COVID-19 cases involved in the latest outbreak in the city has a low homology with previous domestic outbreaks, which means this round of epidemic was caused by a new imported source, according to the authorities.
Starting from Wednesday, Manzhouli railway port will suspend the import of non-container goods including wood, coal, mineral powder, chemical fertilizer, pulp, non-gold mined goods, agricultural and other goods involved with manual loading and unloading, as the latest COVID-19 flare-up was caused by imported contaminated goods.
The three cases all possibly came into contact with imported goods. After on-site visits and investigations, this round of epidemic was spread through "person-to-person or goods-to-person transmission," the authorities noted.
