China’s outbreak expands to 18 provinces, 27 cities
BEIJING/ FORT LAUDERDALE: China on Sunday reported 75 new cases of Covid-19 for July 31 including at least 53 locally transmitted cases with coronavirus infections related to the fastspreading Nanjing-linked outbreak found in 18 provinces and 27 cities.
More than 300 cases, the majority said to be of the highly infectious Delta variant, have been reported since the third week of July. More than 200 local infections have been reported from the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, state media reported on Sunday.
Beijing on Sunday restricted the entry of people from regions where cases have been found after two more infections were reported in the city in the past 24 hours. Authorities said flights and passenger trains from affected areas to Beijing will be suspended.
The province of Jiangsu recorded 30 new locally transmitted cases for Saturday, up from 19 a day earlier.
There were also 12 new cases reported in central China’s Henan province where the floodstricken city of Zhengzhou reported 11 new cases as of Saturday.
“The number of medium and high-risk regions across the country rose to 95 on Sunday, of which 91 are medium-risk regions and four are high-risk regions including the Dehong prefecture of Yunnan, Nanjing of Jiangsu and Zhengzhou of Henan,” the report said.
Officials had earlier said the first cases of the Nanjing outbreak were linked to staff at Nanjing Lukou International Airport, who cleaned an aircraft after it arrived from Russia carrying an infected passenger.
Zhangjiajie, a popular tourist destination in Hunan province, has reported at least eight confirmed cases as of Sunday. Cases in at least seven cities in five provinces including Sichuan and Liaoning and in Beijing have been linked to the tourist destination.
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