BEIJING — A health official has stressed setting up separate hospital areas to treat COVID-19 patients, requiring such cases to be treated separately from others.

In principle, designated hospitals for COVID-19 should not be set up in city centers, said Ma Xiaowei, head of the National Health Commission (NHC), in a recent interview with Xinhua.

The risk of developing a nationwide, large-scale COVID-19 outbreak is low, as 36 of the 48 cities that have reported local infections in the recent resurgence have seen no new cases for more than five consecutive days, Ma said.

He called for efforts to contain the resurgence by the end of August to minimize the impact, as schools will reopen in September.

With emphasis on prevention, the priorities for the next stage should be strengthening epidemic monitoring and information reporting, prevention of imported infection, preparedness for emergency response to cluster outbreaks, prevention of infection in hospitals and speeding up vaccination, Ma said.

As of Aug 13, over 1.84 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China, according to the NHC.