BEIJING — He Qinghua, an official with the National Health Commission, said on May 13 that the public would be timely informed of any latest findings in the epidemiological investigation in Shulan, where multiple domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases were reported recently.

The county-level city in Northeast China's Jilin province reported 11 new confirmed cases on May 9, all domestically transmitted cases. Some infections with links to these cases were reported in the following days.

The commission has sent a working team to the city to help with the disease treatment and epidemiological investigation.

According to He, the commission also sent staff to other places in Heilongjiang and Hubei provinces to help deal with the recent infection cases in those regions and make sure that loopholes in local anti-epidemic work are fixed in a timely manner.

The official said that as people are going back to work and school, the risk of the spread of the virus is increasing. Also, the continued spread of the virus from overseas is putting the anti-epidemic work under greater pressure.

"Epidemic prevention is still a top priority in our current work," he said.

The official called on local authorities to take prompt actions in implementing the anti-epidemic measures on a regular basis and improving the testing capability at professional institutions to quickly identify the source of infection, identify and track close contacts.