Fears of new pandemic wave
More Covid-19 cases in China; laboratory in Wuhan rejects claim virus ‘came from us’
A REPORTED new coronavirus outbreak in China’s Henan province is said to have raised fears of a devastating second wave of Covid-19.
A new cluster of cases has apparently broken out among medical staff at Jia County’s People’s Hospital.
One staff member is said to have only just come back from 14 days in quarantine after they returned from Wuhan in neighbouring Hubei province, where the virus first emerged at the end of last year.
News of the new outbreak came as China reported 16 new confirmed coronavirus cases on April 18, the lowest since March 17 and down from 27 a day earlier. It means the total number of confirmed cases in the mainland reached 82 735 as of April 18, while the total death toll from the virus stood at 4 632.
The claimed new outbreak has prompted authorities to impose travel restrictions. Anyone coming in or out of residential compounds also needs to wear a mask and have their temperature taken, according to an official document leaked to Radio Free Asia.
Businesses in Jia County are also closed except for supermarkets and farmers’ markets.
The news comes as authorities remain on guard against a major resurgence of the virus, which could be socially and economically destabilising. Notably, the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang has seen a surge in infected travellers arriving from Russia in recent weeks, and is now battling to contain a flare-up in local cases.
The data from China’s National Health Commission showed that nine of the new cases reported on Saturday were imported infections, the lowest since March 13 and down from 17 a day earlier.
The remaining seven confirmed cases were locally transmitted, down from 10 the previous day. Heilongjiang has reported 39 new local cases in the past 10 days, or more than 50% of all the new 73 local cases reported in the mainland during the same period.
Most of the cases were related to one imported case in the provincial capital, Harbin. On Friday, a total of 18 officials in Harbin, including a vicemayor, were punished.
To contain the outbreak quickly, the Heilongjiang government is cautioning against family gatherings, cross-infections at hospitals, and slow reporting in epidemic investigations, according to a statement on the provincial government website.
Elsewhere in mainland China, all areas in central Hubei province, including Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak, are now considered low-risk.
However, a Beijing central district is seen as high-risk, according to a social media post by the state council, or cabinet. On April 15, the Chinese capital reported three local cases, all of which were linked to an imported infection.
Areas that are considered of medium-risk in China include two districts in Harbin, the city of Suifenhe in Heilongjiang, two districts in the southern city of Guangzhou as well as Jiaozhou city in eastern Shandong province.
In mainland China, newly discovered asymptomatic cases stood at 44, down from 54 a day earlier. Three of the new cases were imported, according to the health commission.
China does not include asymptomatic cases, or patients who test positive but show no clinical symptoms such as a cough or fever, in its tally of confirmed cases.
The new figures came as a laboratory in Wuhan rejected as “impossible” US theories that it was the cradle of the pandemic, as US President Donald Trump warned Beijing of consequences if it was “knowingly responsible”.
The highly contagious disease was likely first transmitted to humans at a market where exotic animals were slaughtered, according to Chinese scientists.
However, conspiracy theories that the virus came from a maximum security virology lab have been brought into the mainstream in recent days by US government officials.
“There’s no way this virus came from us. I know it’s impossible,” said Yuan Zhiming, the head of the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.