China sees another Covid-19 outbreak with 6 cases in 3 cities in single day
- A dinner with friends has led to infections in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, all in the country’s east
- City governments have moved quickly to contain the outbreak which has emerged just as a Delta wave which began in October was controlled
Three women in Shanghai were diagnosed with the illness on Thursday morning, according to the local government.
The group of friends had travelled to neighbouring city of Suzhou last weekend, where they dined with two men from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, who were classified as close contacts and also tested positive on Thursday evening.
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Another close contact, who lives in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, was notified by the Shanghai authorities and also tested positive.
The six cases come after an outbreak of the highly transmissible Delta variant emerged in mid-October and infected more than 1,300 people in 21 provinces before being contained.
Only two residual cases were reported in Dalian, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, on Thursday while other provinces reported there had been no growth in numbers for days.
The source of the fresh outbreak is still being traced but it highlights the challenge for China’s strict zero-Covid strategy from the more contagious Delta variant in winter, when cold weather drives people indoors and makes transmission more likely.
Infectious diseases expert Zhang Wenhong from Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital, who also heads an expert panel on Covid-19 treatment in the city, said China had accumulated a lot of experience in prevention and control in terms of “dynamic zero Covid”.