CHONGQING -  The city announced the reopening plan last night as the newly increased cases showed a downward trend over the past three consecutive days.

The numbers of newly increased positive cases from November 27 to 29 were 9,685, 8,792, and 7,833, showing a downward trend with a reduction of roughly 1,000 cases per day.

At the press conference held last night, Chongqing Municipal People's Government announced that the city would formally enforce the reopening plan.

Central urban area, including Yuzhong, Dadukou, Jiangbei, Shapingba, Jiulongpo, Nanan, Beibei, Yubei, Banan Districts, Liangjiang New Area and High-tech Industrial Development Zone, and Liangping District will gradually expand the reopening areas with the establishment of more zero-COVID neighborhoods and communities. Other districts and counties can reopen with regular control measures now.

The high-risk areas will now be classified based on the units and buildings, which means that an entire neighborhood or community will no longer be enforced lockdown.

"Because the infection source was unknown in the early outbreak, and there was the risk of extensive community transmission, so we classified the high-risk areas largely," said Yang Lin, Deputy Secretary-General and Spokesperson of Chongqing Municipal People's Government。

Yang continued, "Now, after effective management, the spread at the community level has been controlled, so it is time to adopt a more precise approach."

Other Chinese megacities are also hit in this wave of the outbreak. On November 30, several districts of Guangzhou announced to release of temporary control, with 6,312 (5,629 asymptomatic cases) cases recorded. About 98% of these were concentrated in Haizhu District, where closed-off management measures had been implemented in most parts of the district for more than half a month.

Zhang Yi, deputy director and spokeswoman of Guangzhou Health Commission, told a news conference that the city would perform more scientific and precise identification of high-risk areas, which will generally be residential compounds or building units.

While in Beijing, 5,043 cases (4,020 asymptomatic cases) were recorded, pointing to a continued upward trend in the increased case numbers.