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Xiaogan, a city with the nation's second-largest number of novel coronavirus infections, said it has been fast-tracking the nucleic acid testing (NAT) and expanding its coverage, which explained the recent surge in its confirmed cases.
The city in Hubei Province reported 172 new confirmed cases of the 2019-nCov infection on Friday, adding to its tally of 2,313, which is only second to the provincial capital Wuhan that has 13,603 confirmed cases.
Wu Haitao, mayor of Xiaogan, attributed the local epidemic outbreak to the city's adjacency to Wuhan. The city of 5 million people received a large number of home-bound travelers from Wuhan before this year's Spring Festival, including many infected people, he said in an interview on Friday evening.
Moreover, Xiaogan has been enhancing its NAT efforts, with samples sent for testing nearly doubled between Feb. 1 to 6. The coverage of the tests has also expanded to include more fever patients. Wu said the measures contributed to the recent surge in its confirmed cases.
"The increase in numbers has raised public concerns and fears, pushing us into the spotlight," the official said. "But the enhanced testing and expanded coverage meets the requirements of 'early detection, quarantine, diagnosis and treatment' and is conducive to containing the outbreak."
Local health authorities said the pneumonia cases caused by the new virus in Xiaogan had peaked in late January and is now in the plateau period.
