China reports more than 100 new COVID cases near Beijing

Worries of a new wave of coronavirus resurfaced in China as authorities reported more than 100 cases on Sunday. 109 new coronavirus cases were found in China's Hebei province surrounding Beijing. China has seen new coronavirus infections for last one week. The cases have seen the number go up to a 10-month high.

World Health Organisation-led team of investigators is currently in Wuhan but in quarantine. The team will investigate origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Giving details of the latest daily caseload, the National Health Commission (NHC) said 96 were local infections, 72 of them in Hebei, 12 in northeastern Heilongjiang province, 10 in northeastern Jilin province and two in Beijing.

The latest numbers are much lower than what China reported during the height of the pandemic in 2020 but authorities are on alert nonetheless.

NHC Minister Ma Xiaowei said on Saturday that outbreaks in the northeast have come from travellers entering the country or contaminated frozen food imports. China is the only country to claim COVID-19 can be transmitted via cold chain imports, even though the WHO has downplayed the risks.

Beijing city will begin requiring travellers from abroad to undergo health monitoring for seven additional days following 21 days of medical observation, state-run news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday.

Shijiazhuang, Hebei's capital and the hardest-hit spot in the latest surge of infections, reported 65 new locally transmitted confirmed cases on Jan. 16, the provincial health commission said.

State media also reported a "super-transmission event" linked to one person, who was found asymptomatic on Jan 12 and turned into a confirmed case on Saturday. Data from Jilin showed that 98 cases, mostly asymptomatic, could be linked to the person who had travelled between Heliongjiang and Jilin earlier in the month.

The total of confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China stands at 88,227, while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,635.

(With Reuters inputs)