The Chongqing government reiterated to the public the importance of reducing movement as airborne transmission has emerged as an important route of the spread of COVID-19 this time around, municipal officials said at the press conference on Thursday evening.

On Wednesday, the city reported 7,548 new confirmed local cases and the total number of infections has grown to over 59,000 since the outbreak on Nov 1, deputy mayor Dan Yanzheng said at the conference.

Chongqing, a megacity of 32 million people in Southwest China, is one of the major economic centers in the country.

The number of new cases in 11 districts, in the central urban city, was 6,778 on Wednesday. Of those, infections via community transmission totaled 488, or 7.2 percent of the cases.

"Infections via community transmission continues to fall which means our strategy has achieved some progress," Dan said.

But the residents in the epicenter of this outbreak still need to reduce movement and stay put as much as possible, medical expert said.

The study of this round of outbreak shows that people who get this virus Omicron BA.5.2 strains have high viral loads and are very contagious in the beginning. In addition, the virus transmits by aerosols — tiny specks of fluid — especially in indoor, crowded and inadequately ventilated spaces, said Qiu Jingfu, director of the School of Public Health and Management at Chongqing Medical University.

"Our analysis shows that the number of new infections has reached its peak in recent days and the momentum of the virus spreading has been curbed," he said.

"All people need to work together to achieve the final victory and it is very, very important to limit the movement."