Wuhan has reported its first cluster of new Covid-19 infections since the relaxation last month of a strict quarantine in the Chinese city, where the coronavirus was first detected.
The setback occurred just over a week before China’s parliament was scheduled to convene in Beijing for its delayed annual session, which is usually held in March.
The new infections also coincided with a sharp uptick in new cases in South Korea, where the government’s successful efforts at containing the disease since late January had been hailed as a global model.
According to Wuhan health authorities, the five cases were discovered on Sunday in a single residential community and linked to an infection reported a day earlier — the first confirmed in the city since April 3. The state council dispatched an inspection team to Wuhan on Sunday and said in a statement that “we cannot ruin the results of what we’ve achieved”.
People in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province had been barred from leaving their hometowns from late January until April 8 and March 25 respectively. The lifting of restrictions signalled a shift in the Chinese government’s focus from combating locally transmitted cases to ones “imported” from abroad, mostly by returning Chinese nationals.
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Chinese authorities have banned almost all foreigner arrivals, including longtime residents of the country, since late March.
But there have been concerns about the possible re-emergence of locally transmitted clusters, especially by asymptomatic carriers of the disease. The five new confirmed cases in Wuhan were previously classified as asymptomatic.
Clampdowns after clusters emerged in different parts of China would probably be the “new normal”, said Xi Chen, an expert on public health at Yale University. “There is definitely a lasting concern about resurgence.”
The Wuhan cluster cases were among 17 new infections reported in China on Monday. Seven of the other cases were “imported” on a flight to Beijing that stopped in Inner Mongolia’s Hohhot for screening, Chinese state media reported. The remaining five were local transmissions discovered in north-east China.
The 10 locally transmitted cases were the highest daily total reported since early March. “This reminds us we need to stay on high alert,” said China’s National Health Commission.
FINANCIAL TIMES
