Returning the nightmare to China, the coronavirus returned after a year to the city where it was first located. The role of the Delta mutation.
A year ago, the Covid-19 disappeared from the streets of Wuhan in China. But in this city, where the disease first appeared at the end of 2019, a new outbreak of infection has now spread due to the highly contagious variant strain of the Corona delta, forcing the authorities to subject all its inhabitants to diagnostic tests.
Three new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed Monday in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, following the appearance in July of a outbreak of the Delta strain in eastern China. No local cases of infection have been reported in the city since May 2020.
The re-emergence of the epidemic is a blow to Wuhan, the first city in the world where a lockdown was imposed on January 23, 2020 for 76 days. Since then, life has returned to normal, with residents saying they live in “the safest city in the world”.
Wuhan, on the banks of the Yangtze River, “immediately begins conducting molecular diagnostic tests on all residents,” said Li Tao, the mayor. A total of seven workers from other provinces have tested positive for Covid-19, authorities announced yesterday. Four of them, however, are asymptomatic.
What measures will be taken
China had almost managed to eradicate the epidemic in its territory by spring 2020, with life returning to normal, despite the emergence of sporadic and very limited new outbreaks of Covid-19.
But the new outbreak of the delta strain, first identified in Nanking in July, is spreading rapidly. Today, the Chinese authorities announced 90 new cases of Covid-19. Nationwide, at least 400 cases are linked to the outbreak in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing.
The outbreak of the epidemic remains limited in China compared to other countries, but the new outbreak has spread geographically more than any other in recent months in the country.
Cases in 12 provinces
More than a dozen provinces have reported coronavirus outbreaks, including Beijing, with authorities in the Chinese capital urging residents not to leave the city until Sunday, except in emergencies.
In the face of the risk of a resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic, the Chinese government has resorted to measures similar to those it had taken in early 2020: lockdown, travel restrictions, generalized test campaigns.
In Nanjing, home to more than 9 million people, everyone has twice undergone coronavirus diagnostic tests, and a third campaign is under way.
In the city of Yangzhou, near Nanjing, a lockdown has been imposed after 40 new Covid-19 cases were detected on Monday alone. Under the restrictive measures only one member of each household can leave the house once a day to do the necessary shopping.
source: in.gr
