Four more communities in Shijiazhuang, capital city of China's Hebei Province, raised their alert levels to medium on Sunday, after a continuous rise in reported infections.

Shijiazhuang has logged 44 confirmed cases and 13 asymptomatic cases from Saturday as the city battles a flare-up of local infections.

The city now has a total of 13 communities identified as medium-risk zones for COVID-19 and one high-risk area of COVID-19 – Shijiazhuang's Gaocheng District.

Xingtai City in Hebei Province reported two confirmed cases in the past 24 hours. Nangong, a county-level city administered by Xingtai said it will conduct a second round of mass nucleic acid testing for its residents today.

According to epidemiological investigations, many of the cases in Hebei had been linked to gatherings like weddings and funerals.