-- Yangzhou has become a new area marked with cluster infections after Nanjing, the provincial capital of Jiangsu, about 100 km away.

-- Given the severe epidemic situations worldwide, China still needs to be vigilant against the virus as any slacking could lead to bigger outbreaks and even ones spiraling out of control, said Yu Chuanhua, an expert in epidemiology and health statistics at Wuhan University.

-- "As long as local authorities strictly implement various prevention and control measures, I think the epidemic will be largely under control within two to three incubation periods," said He Qinghua, an official with the National Health Commission.

BEIJING, Aug. 9  -- Yangzhou, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province, has beefed up measures to race against time to contain the spread of COVID-19 caused by the highly contagious Delta variant.

Local authorities had asked people living in residential communities under closed-off management not to leave their homes, the city's epidemic control and prevention headquarters said at a press briefing Monday.