Urumqi, the capital of China's far western region of Xinjiang, has gone into "wartime mode" and launched an emergency response plan after the city reported 16 new coronavirus cases on Friday, Reuters reports. It has also carried out city-wide free infection tests, officials told the press conference as part of what the officials termed a "wartime" response. On its official Weibo account on Saturday the regional government said all recent new infections and asymptomatic cases reported in the autonomous region were in Urumqi. As of July 17, the region reported a total of 17 coronavirus cases, plus 11 asymptomatic cases. It reported another 12 asymptomatic cases as of noon on Saturday.

Source: The Standard July 18, 2020 14:15 UTC