227 new COVID-19 cases revealed in two prisons in China
Global Times
Source:Global Times Published: 2020/2/21 11:00:08
Prison officials in Zhejiang and Shandong have been removed from their posts for failures in novel coronavirus pneumonia prevention and control tasks, which saw a total of 227 new confirmed cases reported in two Chinese prisons on Thursday and ended the 16-day consecutive drop of the number of new confirmed cases in the Chinese mainland outside the epicenter Hubei Province.
Outside Hubei, numbers of new infections rebounded after a 16-day consecutive drop in China. On Thursday, Shandong reported 202 new cases including 200 in Rencheng Prison. Zhejiang reported 28 with 27 from Shilifeng Prison. New cases in these two provinces accounted for 89 percent of the total, which analysts said showed the risks of virus transmission through clustering have been exposed in China as prisons with closed spaces and large number of inmates could easily lead to multiple infections.
Shilifeng Prison in East China's Zhejiang Province has reported a total of 34 confirmed novel coronavirus cases as of Thursday. Among them 27 cases were reported on Thursday alone while the whole province reported 28 new cases on Thursday.
All confirmed patients in the prison have been sent to hospitals for treatment and no deaths have been reported in the prison, according to Zhejiang's provincial government.
Two senior officials of the prison have since been removed from their posts, and one police officer was under investigation for the outbreak in the prison. The prison has been under lockdown to prevent further spread of the virus.
According to the Beijing News, a police officer surnamed Luo in the prison visited family in Wuhan and was diagnosed with the virus afterwards.
Meanwhile, Rencheng Prison in East China's Shandong Province has reported a total of 207 confirmed patients – seven police officers and 200 prisoners. Among them, 200 were reported on Thursday alone, and the total new confirmed cases in the whole province stood at 202 on Thursday.
The party chief of the Shandong Provincial Department of Justice has been removed from the post for failing to properly prevent the spread of the virus in Rencheng Prison.
At present, among 200 prisoners who were confirmed to have been infected with the virus, 125 are mild and 75 are normal. There are no severe and critical cases. The diagnosed police officers are also light, normal and all patients have stable vital signs, said Shandong health commission director at press conference on Friday.
At a press conference held by the publicity office of the Shandong provincial government on Friday morning, Wu Lei, vice Party secretary of Shandong provincial department of justice and director of the Shandong Provincial Prison Authority, said that a police officer on duty at the Rencheng Prison was receiving treatment and quarantined by a hospital after cough on February 12 and was confirmed infected the next day. Another officer in preparation of duty was also confirmed infected the same day.
After the two officers were quarantined, the prison conducted an overall check of all officers, those serving sentences and people who had close contacts with the two officers, according to Wu, adding that lockdown measures were imposed in relevant areas.
Wu also expressed deep regret for the lack of preventive work of Rencheng Prison.
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