Shanghai

China's National Health Commission on Saturday said that recent COVID-19 outbreaks in the northeast have been caused by travellers entering the country or contaminated frozen food imports. In a statement made at a government meeting, NHC Minister Ma Xiaowei said that the virus was spreading to rural areas and that the handling of the recent situation had exposed how prevention and control measures had been relaxed.

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"Since Dec. 2020, epidemic clusters have occurred in Beijing, Sichuan, Liaoning, Hebei and Heilongjiang," a statement posted on the NHC's website said citing the briefing by Ma.

"They mainly have the following characteristics. Firstly, they are all imported from abroad, caused by travellers from overseas, or contaminated cold-chain imported items."

Though the number of cases is lower than what it was at the height of the pandemic, concerns over second wave are growing.

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This surge comes as a World Health Organization-led (WHO) team of investigators are in quarantine in the city of Wuhan, where the disease was first detected in late 2019. The team aims to investigate the origins of the pandemic that has now killed nearly 2 million people worldwide.

China is the only country to claim COVID-19 can be transmitted via cold chain imports, even though the WHO has downplayed the risks, and has been pushing a narrative via state media that the virus existed abroad before it was discovered late last year in the central city of Wuhan.

The country has in the past week seen the number of daily cases jump to an over 10-month high, and for Jan. 15 reported 130 new coronavirus cases in the mainland, versus 144 cases a day earlier.

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Of those cases, 115 were local infections, 90 of which were in Hebei province surrounding Beijing that has been hit hardest in the latest wave.

Another 23 cases were found in northeastern Heilongjiang province while two cases were reported in Beijing. The authority also reported 79 new asymptomatic patients, which it does not classify as confirmed cases, were found on Jan. 15 compared with 66 a day earlier.

Around 28 million people have been put under lockdown so far and Ma said that activities like wedding banquets and other large gatherings have been responsible for latest outbreak.

(With Reuters inputs)