A coronavirus cluster that started in Nanjing has now spread to five provinces and Beijing, putting hundreds of thousands of people on lockdown as authorities try to contain the largest outbreak in months.
China previously boasted of its accomplishment in containing the epidemic within its borders, imposing the world’s first virus lockdown in early 2020 as Covid-19 spread across the country from Wuhan in the center.
However, after an epidemic caused by the fast-spreading Delta variety broke out at Nanjing airport in eastern Jiangsu province earlier this month, that record has been jeopardized.
After nine cleaners at Nanjing Lukou International Airport tested positive on July 20, the city announced a total of 184 local coronavirus cases on Friday.
The Nanjing cluster, which officials have established is the highly transmissible Delta strain, has been connected to at least 206 illnesses across the country.
According to Nanjing health official Ding Jie, “it was discovered that these cleaners participated in cleaning the cabin of airplane CA910” from Russia on July 10.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been detained in Jiangsu province, the capital of which is Nanjing, and the city has tested all of its 9.2 million residents twice.
According to municipal officials, 41,000 individuals in nine housing estates in Beijing’s Changping district were placed under lockdown on Thursday after two locally transmitted cases were discovered.
The infections are the capital’s first locally reported occurrences in six months.
The outbreak is the largest in terms of geographic scope in several months, posing a challenge to China’s vigorous containment efforts, which have depended on mass testing, lockdowns, and rapid contact tracing.
