Wuhan, the Chinese city that became the epicentre of the Covid-19 in late 2019 is witnessing a rise in cases once again. It now plans to test its entire population of 11 million for infections as the virus surges.
After almost a gap of one year, China is witnessing a rise in the number of infections with more than 400 cases detected in the last 11 days in 25 cities. The new cases are related to the delta strain of the virus–supposed to be highly infectious.
China reported 61 domestic cases on Tuesday as the Delta variant reached dozens of cities.
Virus cases are emerging in capital city Beijing, which has stopped 13 trains and temporarily closed inbound rail traffic from 23 stations. Residential areas in Beijing have been sealed off for mass testing.
Read More: China hosted global project to look at coronavirus in bat populations
Read More: China's in-your-face counter punch – Wuhan lab needs Nobel not probe
Though Wuhan reported just seven local cases on Monday, it prompted the authorities to impose severe containment measures. The city had not reported infections since June 2020. Educational institutions have suspended offline classes and vaccination drive has been speeded up.
Chinese State-owned media, Global Times said that Wuhan has locked down areas that reported local infections and upgraded its epidemic response measures.
Nanjing and Yangzhou have cancelled domestic flights. The country also plans to tighten cross-border movement and ban non-essential travel as many cases were reported from people coming from Myanmar.
Global Times said that the ongoing outbreak is the most serious since the initial outbreak in Wuhan. It quoted health authorities as saying that more efforts are required to plug the loopholes in the infection control work along with increasing the mass vaccinations.
China has stoutly denied, and also not allowed any investigations to be conducted in the spread of the virus from Wuhan. It has resisted international pressure to find out whether the novel coronavirus did originate in Wuhan.
Till now, worldwide 200 million people have been infected with over 42.5 lakh deaths.
