Beijing Sends Expert Team to Dalian to Control Covid-19 Outbreak

What’s new: China’s national health commission has sent an expert team to Dalian in the northeastern province of Liaoning following a recent spike in Covid-19 cases there over the last two weeks.

The emergency office of the commission is composed of 10 experts in the areas of medical management, disease prevention and epidemiology.

Upon arrival, the panel joined the local municipal government to work on stemming the Covid-19 resurgence, through the use of big data and epidemiology to trace patient contacts, sequence genes, conduct nucleic acid testing, as well as administer collective quarantines.

The background: From Dec. 15 to Dec. 24, the port city had a cumulative count of 19 confirmed symptomatic cases and 20 asymptomatic cases, ending a streak of months without new cases that started in August. China does not include asymptomatic patients in its total confirmed case count.

The city’s outbreak originated from a Chinese traveler who had returned from South Korea more than three weeks previously, the local government announced in a statement Wednesday.

As of Friday, China has confirmed a total of 86,913 coronavirus cases, with the death toll remaining at 4,634. China has suspended round-trip flights to the U.K. after two highly transmissible Covid-19 strains were discovered in the country.

Quick Takes are condensed versions of China-related stories for fast news you can use.

Contact editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)