China: The Delta variant affects five provinces
China, the original site of the coronavirus that first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, reported its largest outbreak of the delta variant. After a first outbreak in Nanjing spread across the country, there were 206 official cases across the country, spread across 13 cities and 5 provinces.
The authorities claim to have traced the epidemic to a crew of airport workers who were cleaning a plane that had just arrived from Russia, but now this is starting to have little importance, given the spread that is now not easy to control.
State media reported that a couple of workers tested positive after not following strict hygiene guidelines. So far, 7 people infected in the latest outbreak are in critical condition, unsurprising considering delta is believed to be more virulent and infectious, causing more severe infections in younger patients.
It is the first outbreak in China since last month's outbreak in Dongguan. Officials responded to that outbreak in the usual way, shutting down part of the city and ordering mandatory tests.
Beijing has a pre-established strategy for handling COVID cases in line with the “zero tolerance” approach, something China's public health authorities share with Australia, which is struggling with the economic fallout of its latest round of lockdowns. It typically involves new blocking measures (or at least some kind of temporary restriction on movement) as millions of people in the area are tested. Officials reportedly plan to test all 9 million residents of Nanjing. At the same time, however, these epidemic events can lead to interruptions in production and logistic activities, with chain repercussions on all productions.
The latest outbreak is also raising further questions about the efficacy of China's Sinovac vaccine, which is facing criticism for its low efficacy. Now that the delta has finally caught on in China, the variant will test these vaccines, just as it did in the UK, mainland Europe, India and, of course, the US. If coverage proves disappointing, there will be major health problems in Beijing.
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The article China: the Delta variant affects five provinces comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/cina-la-variante-delta-colpisce-cinque-province/ on Sat, 31 Jul 2021 10:57:02 +0000.