Mainland China reports 22 new coronavirus cases, including 16 in Xinjiang

The capital of China's far-western Xinjiang region, Urumqi, has launched emergency response plan after the city reported 16 new coronavirus cases on Friday.

Including the 16 cases in Urumqi, China reported 22 new coronavirus cases in the mainland for July 17, up from 10 cases a day earlier, the health authority said on Saturday. Six others were imported cases.

After the new cluster of coronavirus was found, the province canceled almost 600 flights and the air traffic was slashed by 89 per cent. All metro services have been suspended, shuttle buses to the airport have been cut off and the bus services in the neighbouring districts have been shut.

The infections were detected beginning on Wednesday, and news of the cases prompted state media outlets in Urumqi to issue assurances on Friday that supermarkets had ample stocks of food, an apparent attempt to discourage panic-buying.

The new cases illustrate the continuing difficulty China faces in stamping out the contagion, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year before spreading throughout the country and globally.

Around half of Xinjiang's population of more than 21 million is composed of ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, many of whom complain of decades of political and religious oppression by China's ruling Communist Party, which the government denies.

At least 1 million Uighurs are detained in the concentration camps located in the province if a new cluster breaks out in the camps, another tragedy will be upon China.

China's capital city of Beijing suffered a flare-up of coronavirus infections last month, with the government re-imposing strict control measures that were used across the country earlier in the year to stifle the first wave of infections. The measures appear to have doused the recent virus clusters in Beijing.

As of Friday, mainland China had 83,644 confirmed coronavirus cases, the health authority said. The COVID-19 death toll remained at 4,634.