Beijing reported another novel coronavirus infection on Tuesday after one was reported on Monday, marking the end of 21 consecutive days free from any local infections. The latest infection is related to the one reported on Monday, a woman who contracted the virus from an asymptomatic virus carrier with whom she had dinner in Jinzhou, Liaoning province. Six new cases were reported on Monday and eight on Tuesday in the province.

What is noteworthy is the fact that all 14 new cases in Dalian, a port city in Liaoning, in the past two days were asymptomatic ones before they developed symptoms and became confirmed cases. This serves as a reminder that there is always the danger of contracting the virus at any gathering since one can never tell who is an asymptomatic virus carrier. Even a virus carrier who has no symptoms may not know that he or she is carrying the virus.

Also on Tuesday, 89 new cases were reported in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Of them, 43 were asymptomatic, although they developed symptoms later. There were 15 newly reported asymptomatic cases in the city. As of Tuesday, Xinjiang still had 322 cases under treatment, there were 133 asymptomatic cases and more than 9,000 people are under medical observation.

It is quite likely that more cases will be reported in Xinjiang, and it may take a couple of weeks before new cases drop to a single digit.

The government has put people's lives and health first, and it will continue to wage a whole-of-nation "people's war" against the virus, as this has been an important guarantee for effective efforts to prevent and control the spread of the virus.

It was thanks to this approach that Beijing was able to lower its public health emergency response from level two to three on July 20 after the outbreak in Xinfadi Wholesale Market on June 11. The total number of cases in that outbreak was 335, and 311 have recovered and been discharged from hospital.

The lowered response level means more public activities, more cross-province travel and eased control measures in residential areas.

However, people can never take it for granted that they can cast aside personal preventive measures and go anywhere they want without wearing a face mask and observing social distancing.

Given that there is no hope of the pandemic being controlled worldwide in the days to come, there is always the risk of being infected with the virus from an unwitting carrier.

Everyone must continue to shoulder their responsibilities to prevent the spread of the virus. It should become a habit to wear a face mask in public and to wash one's hands upon returning home, and never touching one's face or anything at home before washing one's hands.

This will be the new normal for quite a long time to come.