Beijing: China recorded 32,695 new local cases on Thursday, setting a new daily record for daily COVID-19 cases, for the second day in a row, media reports said.
Of the total COVID cases, 3,041 were symptomatic while 29,654 were asymptomatic, Reuters news agency reported. The report added that Thursday’s new local COVID-19 infections set a daily record, beating a figure set in mid-April.
A day earlier, China recorded the highest number of daily COVID-19 cases, since the start of the pandemic.
“Chinese mainland reported 3,927 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, and 27,517 new local asymptomatic cases,” the state media outlet Global Times (GT) reported. The latest number broke the previous record set on April 13, when the cases hit 29, 317, according to Reuters news agency.
On Monday, China’s top health official said that country is facing the ‘most complicated and severest anti-epidemic situation’ since the emergence of coronavirus.
Liu Xiaofeng, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was quoted as saying by GT that China is at the ‘most critical and toughest moment’ of fighting coronavirus.
The Chinese city of Zhengzhou, home to a flagship iPhone factory, imposed a COVID-19 lockdown in several districts after a series of protests erupted at the key facility.
The city authority asked its residents in the downtown area to stay at home from Friday till next Tuesday as the new cases found at the community level remain high, Global Times reported.
Notably, hundreds of workers protested at Foxconn’s flagship iPhone plant in Zhengzhou city this week where workers were seen marching and clashing with people in Hazmat suits and riot police, according to media reports.