The Chinese Wuhan is the place of origin of the corona virus. The country has largely brought the pandemic under control since 2019 with rigid measures. But now new cases are being reported.
China has reported the highest number of infections since the first corona outbreak in the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan. As the state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, 402 local infections with symptoms were discovered nationwide on Wednesday – almost twice as many as the previous day. There were also 435 asymptomatic infections and 277 cases imported from abroad.
After the first major wave of corona, which originated in Wuhan more than two years ago, China was able to quickly bring the virus under control with strict measures. Since then, the second largest economy has only experienced outbreaks limited to individual regions. But since omicron was first discovered in the eastern Chinese port city of Tianjin at the beginning of January, health experts have feared that the more contagious corona variant could push Chinese protective measures to their limits.
With Beijing and Shanghai, individual cases were recently discovered in the country’s two most important cities. New infections were reported from seven provinces and regions on Wednesday alone. The northeast Chinese province of Jilin was particularly hard hit, where there were 165 symptomatic infections.
Government responds with curfews and lockdowns
When the Sars-CoV-2 virus broke out in Wuhan in December 2019, a curfew was imposed on more than 50 million people in the central Chinese metropolis and neighboring cities. It was the beginning of the drastic measures that the country’s most populous country has taken to largely get the virus under control. Everyday life has now largely returned to normal.
Since then, China has responded to only a few cases immediately with lockdown, mass testing, contact tracing and forced quarantine. Since the summer there have initially been only a few local infections. Since the beginning of the year, however, China has again experienced larger outbreaks in the provinces of Jilin, Heilongjiang and Hebei – individual infections in Beijing and Shanghai. The authorities are alarmed because they have shown gaps in prevention, especially in rural areas.
