The Chinese mainland on Wednesday reported 53 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, all in Inner Mongolia, the National Health Commission said in its daily report on Thursday.
Also reported were 20 new imported cases in eight provincial-level regions, according to the commission.
The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland had reached 98,897 by Wednesday, including 906 patients still receiving treatment, of whom seven were in severe condition.
Manzhouli, China's largest land port city in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is in the spotlight as the latest coronavirus flare-up has seen 142 new infections as of Wednesday, which was caused by contaminated imported goods. As a city bordering Mongolia and Russia where many China-Europe freight trains passing through every year, Manzhouli, like some other Chinese port cities, has been standing at the frontline in fighting against imported virus cases. Epidemiologists and insiders warned that loopholes in port management challenge China's dynamic zero-COVID policy.
Local authorities are confident they will contain the outbreak within 14 days, as China's dynamic zero-COVID policy boosted the confidence and experts believed the approach remains the most effective one amid rising uncertainties of the epidemic worldwide.
The city of a population of 300,000 reported 12 new cases on Wednesday and raised the status of three neighborhoods to high-risk after Manzhouli completed its third round of citywide nucleic acid testing. It is not the first time this land port city has had to confront coronavirus flare-ups caused by imported cases, after Manzhouli port found imported cases from Russia in April 2020 and then fought a domestic outbreak in late November 2020 due to imported virus.
Starting Wednesday, Manzhouli railway port suspended the import of non-container goods including wood, coal, mineral powder, chemical fertilizer, pulp, non-gold mined goods, agricultural and other goods that require manual loading and unloading.
