Residents wearing face masks line up at a makeshift nucleic acid testing site during mass testing for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, China, on March 14, 2022. REUTERS
BEIJING — China recorded a sharp rise in daily COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, with new cases more than doubling from a day earlier to a two-year high as an outbreak of the virus quickly spread across the country. the northeast of the country.
A total of 3,507 locally transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were reported Monday from more than a dozen provinces and municipalities, the National Health Commission said, up from 1,337 the day before.
China’s case count is still tiny by global standards, but health experts said the rate of increase in daily cases over the next few weeks will be a crucial factor in determining whether its tough “clearance” approach dynamic” – which aims to contain every outbreak – is still effective against the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
A COVID-19 forecasting system run by Lanzhou University in northwest China predicted that the current spate of infections would finally be brought under control in early April after a cumulative total of around 35,000 cases.
The university said in its latest assessment released on Monday that while the current outbreak was the worst on the mainland since Wuhan in 2020, China could bring it under control as long as strict restrictions remain in place.
Travel bans
In Shanghai’s financial hub, authorities battling an outbreak across the city cordoned off individual apartment buildings and tested all residents.
China’s aviation regulator said 106 international flights scheduled to arrive in Shanghai will be diverted to other domestic cities from March 21 to May 1 due to COVID.
Confirmed symptomatic infections in Shanghai stood at 21 on Monday, including 12 imported from overseas, with an additional 130 asymptomatic cases.
Nearly 90% of new symptomatic cases confirmed on the mainland on Monday were found in the country’s northeast Jilin province, which has banned its 24.1 million people from traveling within and outside the province and in different areas of the province without notifying the local police.
Jilin officials should step up preparations for temporary hospitals and designated hospitals and use unused locations to ensure all infections and their close contacts are isolated, a local newspaper backed by Communist Party authorities said. quoting the provincial leader of the Party.
The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at 1,768 from 906 a day earlier.
There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll unchanged at 4,636.
As of March 14, mainland China had reported 120,504 cases with confirmed symptoms, including local cases and those arriving from outside the mainland.
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