Millions in lockdown as China faces surge
Wuhan city, the first epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, reports seven new cases of the disease
Millions of people were confined to their homes in China on Monday as the country tried to contain its largest coronavirus outbreak in months including seven positive tests found in Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in late 2019.
China reported 55 new locally transmitted cases on Monday as an outbreak of the fast-spreading Delta variant reached over 20 cities in more than a dozen provinces.
The Wuhan cluster came after the official daily tally was released, but it was confirmed by state media which said the infections had been traced to a train station. “The seven were identified as migrant workers,” Xinhua reported, citing Covid-19 prevention and control officials.
Major cities including Beijing have now tested millions of residents while cordoning off residential compounds and placing close contacts under quarantine.
Over 1.2 million residents were placed under strict lockdown for the next three days in the central city of Zhuzhou in Hunan province on Monday, as authorities roll out a citywide testing and vaccination campaign, according to an official statement. “The situation is still grim and complicated,” Zhuzhou’s authorities said.
Beijing had previously boasted of its success in bringing domestic cases down to virtually zero after the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan, allowing the economy to rebound.
But the latest outbreak, linked to a cluster in the city of Nanjing where nine cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20, is threatening that success with more than 360 domestic cases reported in the past two weeks.
In the tourist destination of Zhangjiajie, famed for its national forest park, an outbreak spread last month among theatre patrons who then brought the virus back to their homes around the country. Zhangjiajie locked down all 1.5 million residents on Friday.
Officials are urgently seeking people who have recently travelled from Nanjing or Zhangjiajie, and have urged tourists not to travel to areas where cases have been found.
US report claims virus leaked from Chinese lab
A preponderance of evidence proves the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic leaked from a Chinese research facility, said a report by US Republicans released on Monday, a conclusion that US intelligence agencies have not reached.
The report also cited “ample evidence” that Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists aided by US experts and Chinese and American government funds - were working to modify coronaviruses to infect humans and such manipulation could be hidden.
Representative Mike McCaul, the top Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, released the report by the panel’s Republican staff. It urged a bipartisan investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
China denies a genetically modified coronavirus leaked from the facility in Wuhan.