BEIJING — Here are the latest developments from China's COVID-19 control and prevention efforts:

— Construction workers on Jan 13 started building a centralized medical observation center in Shijiazhuang, capital of North China's Hebei province, where clusters of COVID-19 cases recently emerged.

The isolation center will likely cover 33 hectares near a village in Zhengding county.

Hebei reported 81 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and four locally transmitted asymptomatic cases on Jan 13, the majority of which were in Shijiazhuang.

— The provinces of Hebei and Liaoning have postponed their annual provincial legislative meetings after recent spikes in COVID-19 cases.

Recovering from a recent outbreak, the northeastern province of Liaoning on Jan 13 reported no new confirmed COVID-19 cases or asymptomatic cases. The province currently has 51 confirmed cases being treated in hospitals.

— Authorities in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region said they detected the novel coronavirus in environmental samples collected from a public hospital in the Ewenki Autonomous Banner on Jan 13.

The hospital has been sealed off and nucleic acid tests are being conducted among hospital staff and patients. The local government has also imposed traffic restrictions on the area where the hospital is located.

— Ngari prefecture in Southwest China's Tibet autonomous region has donated 40 metric tons of mineral water and 4 tonnes of mutton to assist the COVID-19 battle in Hebei.

Some of the donations, which also included 6,000 herbal sachets, have boarded a flight bound for Shijiazhuang, while the remaining supplies will soon travel by train to reach the virus-hit city.