North China's Tianjin Municipality, which has witnessed the latest COVID-19 resurgence, has launched an emergency response mechanism to ensure the supply of daily necessities.

According to the Tianjin municipal bureau of commerce, local authorities have mobilized major wholesale suppliers, supermarkets and vegetable markets to add inventory to cope with the demand for meat, eggs and vegetables.

The stock of vegetables has been increased from two days to three to four days, and the supply of rice, flour and oil has risen from 20 days to 30 days to cope with the city's fight against the outbreak of the Omicron variant.

The municipality has 13.86 million people and neighbors the national capital of Beijing. It has started a citywide nucleic acid testing after 20 people tested positive for COVID-19 from 6 p.m. Friday to 9 p.m. Saturday, authorities said Sunday.

The infections were reported Saturday in Jinnan District. The gene sequencing found that the first two locally transmitted confirmed cases were of VOC/Omicron variant, according to the municipal headquarters for COVID-19 prevention and control.

Local authorities said on Monday that an additional 21 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases were reported in the city on Sunday.

Residents in Tianjin are asked not to leave the city unless necessary. People who leave the city must hold a negative nucleic acid test certificate and green health code within 48 hours. The regulation comes into effect from Sunday onward.

Currently, the city's major wholesale markets for agricultural products have a sufficient supply of goods.

After the report of the COVID-19 infections, some commodities such as vegetables, eggs and pork went out of stock for a short time on Sunday due to panic buying. However, according to the commerce bureau, all major supermarkets and vegetable markets replenished goods in time, and the market supply returned to normal on Sunday afternoon.

It said that the city now has ample stock of meat, eggs, vegetables, salt, milk, bottled water and instant food. The emergency mechanism would ensure the reserved commodities are sent out to maintain market supply in time once necessary.

The bureau monitors the inventories and commodity prices of over 180 suppliers of daily necessities to ensure market prices are stable and check on price gouging and hoarding.

Tianjin is witnessing one of the latest regional outbreaks in China. Shaanxi Province in the country's northeast had reported nearly 2,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases since December, and smaller outbreaks occurred in Guangdong of the south, Zhejiang to the east, and Henan in central China.

The Chinese mainland recorded 157 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Sunday, with 97 linked to local transmissions and 60 from overseas, data from the National Health Commission showed on Monday.

Confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland now total 103,776, with the death toll remaining unchanged at 4,636 since January last year.

(With input from Xinhua)