Two confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 116 asymptomatic carriers were reported from Monday midnight to 8:30 pm on Tuesday in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the local government said during a news conference on Tuesday night.

Shufu county of Kashgar prefecture and neighboring Aktaw county in the Kezilesu Kirgiz autonomous prefecture will start their fourth round of nucleic acid tests for the novel coronavirus for all their residents on Wednesday, said Wang Xijiang, deputy director of Kashgar's disease control and prevention center. Kashgar finished three previous rounds of nucleic tests for its entire 4.75 million population on Oct 27, Saturday and Tuesday.

The two newly confirmed patients were re-categorized to confirmed cases because they have developed symptoms, while the newly found asymptomatic carriers are all people already in quarantine for medical observation, he said.

The cases are all related to Kashgar's Shufu county, the place where the first cases of the recent cluster infections were reported. Shufu reported an asymptomatic case on Oct 24, when a 17-year-old girl tested positive during a routine check.

As of 8:30 pm on Tuesday, the region has 64 confirmed cases and 345 asymptomatic ones. They are all from Shufu and Aktaw. The cases in Aktaw are closely related to the ones in Shufu, according to the government in Aktaw.