Medical worker Yan Huanjiao collects a swab sample from a resident at Tianshan District in Urumqi, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 20, 2020.(Xinhua/Zhao Ge)

One day after Kashi in Southwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region reported one asymptomatic coronavirus carrier Saturday, the city reported 137 new cases on Sunday, all related to the case found a day earlier. 

During a press conference on Sunday, an official from the regional health commission said that the confirmed case of COVID-19 is a 17-year-old female, who works in a clothing factory.  

The health commission said that the patient has stayed in Shufu county the entire year, and has not knowingly been in contact with any confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases, nor has she been in contact with fever patients or wild animals.

The city conducted nucleic acid tests on 831 employees of the clothing factory, none tested positive. However, 137 close contacts of the woman's parents did test positive but are also asymptomatic. 

All the cases are related to the factory in which her parents work, yet her parents and her brother tested negative.

All close contacts of those cases are under medical observation, the Xinjiang regional health authority said on Sunday.

Gu Yingsu, deputy head of Xinjiang's health commission said that flights, trains and road travel to Kashi are operating normally. Kashi has canceled 34 inward and outward flights since Sunday. Sixteen flights between Kashi and Urumqi, regional capital of Xinjiang, were canceled. 

Those who come to Kashi do not need to be quarantined, but they do need to provide a negative test report for COVID-19. Those wishing to leave the city can do so as long as they have a negative nucleic acid test report valid for seven days. 

Global Times