Hundreds of thousands locked down in China during biggest outbreak in months

By Rozina Sabur July 31, 2021 â€" 9.22am

Washington: China is fighting its biggest COVID-19 outbreak in months fuelled by the Indian/delta variant while the United States is intensifying efforts to combat the strain which officials believe is more contagious than chickenpox.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Jiangsu province were in a coronavirus lockdown yesterday (Fri) after a cluster of infections were detected in the provincial capital Nanjing.

Temporary laboratories for nucleic acid testing are seen in a sports stadium in Nanjing in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province.Credit:AP

The outbreak was linked to airport workers who cleaned a plane from Russia this month. By yesterday, infections were detected in Beijing and five provinces. At least 206 infections across China have been linked to the cluster and the outbreak is geographically the largest in several months.

In Beijing’s Changping district, where two locally transmitted cases have been found, 41,000 people in nine housing communities were placed under lockdown on Thursday, according to city officials.

It comes as a leaked document from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suggested the delta variant causes more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox. The document, argues that US health officials must “acknowledge the war has changed” and intensify efforts to halt the spread.

People line up for COVID-19 tests at a testing station in Nanjing in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province.Credit:AP

It reflects the difficulties the US faces as it struggles to persuade more Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine and take up prevention measures such as wearing face masks as cases surge and new research suggests that vaccinated people can spread the virus.

The CDC warned Americans this week that vaccinated people with the delta variant carry as much virus in the nose and throat as unvaccinated people.

The health agency changed its guidelines on Tuesday to recommend that vaccinated Americans return to wearing face masks in areas of the country where transmission is high.

But the internal CDC document suggests that the measures may not go far enough.

“Given higher transmissibility and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is essential,” the document said.

A study of a large coronavirus outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts suggests the amount of virus in fully vaccinated people was as great as the viral load in unvaccinated people. Credit:AP

The agency was expected to publish additional data on the variant yesterday.

Scientists who studied a big COVID-19 outbreak in Massachusetts concluded that vaccinated people who got so-called breakthrough infections carried about the same amount of the coronavirus as those who did not get the shots.

Health officials on Friday released details of that research, which was key in this week’s decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to recommend that vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the US where the delta variant is fueling infection surges.

The authors said the findings suggest that the CDC’s mask guidance should be expanded to include the entire country, even outside of hot spots.

The Biden administration is considering whether to introduce a federal mandate for Americans to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said on Friday.

“That’s something that I think the administration is looking into,” Walensky said when asked in a Fox News Channel interview if she favors mandating a vaccine on a federal level.

Meanwhile, local media reported that most of the early patients in Nanjing, where China’s most recent outbreak occurred, were vaccinated, leading commentators online to question the efficacy of domestic vaccines.

“If the goal is to slow down the spread and reduce the fatality rate, [Chinese vaccines] can afford a certain degree of protection,” Zhang Wenhong, the leading Shanghai infectious diseases expert, said in a social media post on Thursday.

China’s top disciplinary watchdog has blamed Nanjing airport officials for “poor supervision and unprofessional management”, including failing to separate cleaning staff who worked on international flights from those on domestic flights.

Telegraph, London, Reuters

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