Beijing wore a deserted look with people staying indoors as the four-day May Day holidays were set to end on Wednesday. In Shanghai which is under lockdown for over a month, the number of COVID infections fell for the 13th consecutive day.
More than 3,400 cases of Covid cases were reported in China on Friday. Apart from this, 20,700 such cases were also detected in which patients did not show any symptoms.
Despite calls for a more targeted approach and some tweaking of the system, conditions in Shanghai show the government’s continuing reliance on extreme measures, regardless of the social and economic costs.
A fast-spreading variant known as “stealth omicron” is testing China's zero-tolerance strategy, which has previously kept the virus at bay after a deadly initial outbreak in early 2020.
Some time back, an IIT Kanpur study of coronavirus, predicted that India will see a fourth wave of the pandemic that may start around June 22 and peak from mid to late August this year.
Authorities in China have pledged to lock down any community where one or more cases are found under China’s “zero tolerance” approach to the pandemic.
The government told people in areas of Beijing deemed at high risk for infection not to leave the city after 25 cases were found in the Fengtai district and 14 elsewhere. Fengtai residents have lined up on snow-covered sidewalks in freezing weather for testing.
H5N6 bird flu is known to cause severe illness in humans of all ages and has killed nearly half of those infected, according to WHO.
Also reported were 23 new imported cases -- nine in Yunnan, three each in Hubei, Guangxi and Sichuan, two each in Shanghai and Guangdong, and one in Tianjin, reports Xinhua news agency.
China declared the coronavirus under control in early 2020 but has suffered outbreaks of the more contagious delta variant.
When WHO traveled to China earlier this year to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Ben Embarek said he was worried about biosafety standards at a laboratory close to the market where the first human cases were detected.
Last year, Wuhan completed a comprehensive nucleic acid testing campaign, during which it tested nearly 10 million residents in 19 days.
Xi Jinping pledged 2 billion doses of Chinese vaccines would be supplied to the world through this year and $100 million would be donated to a U.N.-backed distribution program, state media reported.
Of the new cases, 58 were found in the eastern city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, where the highly contagious delta variant spread among airport workers in the provincial capital of Nanjing.
Zhangjiajie started massive nucleic acid testing in three regions on Wednesday, said Wang Jianghua, director of the municipal health commission.
One other case of local transmission was reported in the nearby city of Suqian and one in the northeastern province of Liaoning.
The United States in coordination with the international community will continue to press China to be transparent and forthcoming with information on the origins of COVID-19
Of the two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses distributed globally till now, about 60 per cent have gone to just three countries - the US, India and China, a senior adviser at the World Health Organisation said.
China on Monday re-imposed anti-coronavirus travel controls on its southern province of Guangdong, announcing anyone leaving the populous region must be tested for the virus following a spike in infections that has alarmed authorities.
The two-dose vaccine is the first approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes as the country has begun to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February.
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