Seven new locally transmitted cases reported in Wuhan

Wuhan of Hubei province reported seven locally transmitted COVID-19 cases on Monday, one of which overlapped with a tour group from Huai'an, Jiangsu province when they were all waiting in Jingzhou Railway Station on July 27.

The seven confirmed infected have been transferred to a designated hospital for medical treatment, and related areas have been closed for disinfection, the management committee of Wuhan Economic and Technological Zone, where the seven people worked, said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

It was the first time locally transmitted cases have been tracked in Wuhan, once hard-hit by the COVID-19 epidemic, since the city declared clearing its confirmed patients in hospitals in June 2020, according to data from the provincial health authority.

On July 22, a group of 67 people from a Jiangsu-based company traveled to Zhangjiajie of Hunan province, which has recently become a virus hotspot. They arrived at the Jingzhou Railway Station at 13:10 on July 27 and stayed at the waiting hall for about three hours before leaving.

The Jingzhou Railway Station was later found to be connected with at least 10 confirmed COVID-19 cases scattered around several domestic cities in addition to Wuhan, after they overlapped tracks with the tour group on July 27.

For example, a passenger living in Haikou of Hainan province who was identified as a confirmed case on Sunday took a train on the afternoon of July 27 at Jingzhou Railway Station, according to Hainan Daily.

On Monday, a couple in Jingzhou were confirmed positive, according to the Jingzhou headquarters of pandemic prevention and control.

The station has suspended services for 19 trains on Monday, and three bus stations in the city have suspended services since Monday at noon, according to a report from The Paper, a domestic news portal.

Feng Xiaojie in Beijing contributed to this story.