BREAKING: New COVID-19 Outbreak In China

China has enforced what the officials called ‘the strictest’ anti-virus measures on the capital city of Xinjiang as the region braces for a looming COVID-19 outbreak.

Urumqi, a city of 3.5million in western China, recorded five new confirmed cases today after registering its first COVID-19 infection in five months on Thursday.

The government has shut down the city’s only subway line and the shuttle bus services to the airport. Around 200 flights in and out of the city’s international airport have reportedly been cancelled today.

Air passengers must show a negative result from their nucleic acid testing – which detects the existence of the virus – carried out in the past seven days before being allowed to board flights to and from Urumqi, according to a Chinese airline.

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It comes as China’s capital city has been battling a local coronavirus outbreak linked to a seafood market since mid-June, despite the majority of the nation appears to have contained the crisis.

Xinjiang had reported a total of 76 COVID-19 cases since January. The autonomous region had stopped registering new cases from February 18.

After reporting zero infections for five months, the Urumqi officials recorded a new confirmed case on Thursday, a 24-year-old female retail worker, who developed a sore throat last Friday and was sent to hospital via ambulance.

She was diagnosed as a confirmed COVID-19 infection on Wednesday after testing positive for the virus, said the local health authorities yesterday.

Officials also confirmed three asymptomatic patients who had close contacts with the woman.

Following the first confirmed infection, the local government wrote in a notice: ‘[We] must resolutely cut off the channel of transmission, focus on key people and key areas, take the most determined, decisive, and strictest measures to ensure that all investigations and inspections are conducted and resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic.’

The city’s transport authorities announced to shut down the subway in a statement yesterday, said Chinese media. But the post appears to have been removed from its social media page.

On Friday, the government reported another five new confirmed infections, bringing the total active cases to six. Eight new asymptomatic cases were also registered.

A total of 135 people are under quarantine for medical observation, the authorities say.

It remains unclear if all the patients are linked to the same infection cluster or source.