The Chinese government describes its tactics in combating the coronavirus with the words “Hit right away and hard.”
The number of new cases of coronavirus infection COVID-19 is growing rapidly in China. The increase in the number of cases is associated with the spread of the delta strain, which penetrates from abroad and breaks through the immunity from Chinese vaccines. Against this background, all residents of Wuhan will be tested for coronavirus. Correspondent.net tells the details.
Strongest surge since the start of the pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019, but thanks to unprecedented strict quarantine measures, the authorities managed to suppress the epidemic on their territory in a relatively short time.
No COVID-19 cases have been reported in Wuhan since June 2020. However, on August 3, it became known that all residents of the city will be tested for coronavirus due to the detection of seven new cases.
In addition, the authorities introduced a lockdown in the Wuhan area, where infections with the virus were recorded. Classes in schools and educational institutions have been suspended, and increased security measures have been introduced in the metro, including the mandatory wearing of masks and temperature measurements, and a number of stations have been closed.
In other cities in China, outbreaks of coronavirus infection have also begun to be recorded. In the mainland of the PRC, new cases were immediately registered in 14 out of 31 regions. As of today, there are already 75 zones with an increased level of epidemiological danger in the country, while on July 18 there was only one such zone.
Over the past ten days, several hundred new cases have been registered, and more and more infected are being detected every day. At the same time, it turned out that among the sick there are those who were previously vaccinated.
Such numbers may seem insignificant by the standards of other countries, but for densely populated China, these numbers are large, since for about a year the daily count of new cases was in units.
The State Committee for Hygiene and Health of the People’s Republic of China announced that it has not yet been possible to stop the spread of coronavirus in China. In the current situation, Chinese state media are reporting on the worst outbreak of COVID-19 since the outbreak of the Wuhan pandemic.
All residents will be tested in Wuhan / Getty
–
Experts attribute the increase in the number of cases to the spread of the delta strain. If at the very beginning of the pandemic, the coronavirus set off on a worldwide campaign from Wuhan, China, today the situation is fundamentally different from the events of a year and a half due to a number of signs.
This time, the process is reversed: new strains of coronavirus penetrate into the PRC from abroad, and therefore border provinces and international airports are in the greatest risk zone.
Thus, the source of a new outbreak of coronavirus in the city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province in eastern China was Air China flight CA910, which arrived from Russia in mid-July, writes the Global Times.
The first infected were airport employees who cleaned the cabin of the plane after this flight. They may have violated personal disinfection requirements. As a result, the infection has spread to other colleagues who are also responsible for garbage collection on both international and domestic flights.
All infected have contracted the delta strain of the coronavirus, which is believed to have mutated in India.
Of particular concern now is the popular resort of Zhangjiajie in Yunnan province, where about 5,000 people, including tourists from Nanjing, attended theatrical performances and then dispersed throughout China.
–
Wuhan residents buy food again / Getty
Breach in the Great Immune Wall
The threat of a new wave of pandemic, which China faced, came as a surprise. Relying on vaccination, which has been at a record pace in recent months – up to 20 million inoculations daily – Chinese epidemiologists at some point even started talking about the construction of the Great Immune Wall as the ultimate goal of an all-out vaccination campaign.
According to the latest data, a total of 1.67 billion doses of the four vaccines approved in the country (all of them Chinese) have been used in the PRC. Fully vaccinated 16 percent of the population.
–
A stadium in Wuhan filled with alumni on June 23, 2021 / Getty
–
Although vaccination in China is voluntary, the high discipline of the population and strict adherence to “directives” – from the central to the grassroots level – leave no place in Chinese society for COVID dissidents and protests against restrictive measures.
In this regard, by the end of the year, the Chinese authorities plan to achieve herd immunity by fully vaccinating 80 percent of the population.
However, the emergence of a new, much more infectious strain of delta, with which, as it turns out, both Chinese and Western vaccines cannot completely cope with, means: it is too early to talk about an imminent victory on the coronavirus front.
Delta is a new virus
On the eve of the American newspaper Washington Post published excerpts from an internal government document on the development of the coronavirus epidemic, which states that the delta strain is not only as contagious as chickenpox, but also easily transmitted from vaccinated people to vaccinated.
The document, received by the Centers for Medical Prevention and Control, summarizes recent findings regarding several mysterious outbreaks of delta-coronavirus infection, as well as the results of as-yet unpublished studies on the strain. We can say that a new war has begun, the authors of the document conclude.
The main thing in the document is the recognition that the delta strain can actually be considered a new virus.
The previous idea that vaccination protects a person is not exactly disproved: the course of the disease in vaccinated people is still easier than in unvaccinated ones (although, in general, the delta strain makes the picture of the disease worse).
–
Vaccination in Wuhan / Getty
–
But other hopes associated with vaccination are dashed: the viral load of the vaccinated, most likely, can be the same as that of the unvaccinated, and the vaccinated can be contagious as well as the unvaccinated.
What’s especially bad is that the delta strain spreads as easily as one of the most contagious viruses, chickenpox. It is much more infectious than the common cold and such a famous disease-causing agent as the Ebola virus.
News from Correspondent.net in Telegram. Subscribe to our channel https://t.me/korrespondentnet
– .
