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Wuhan recorded its first cases since lifting its strict lockdown last month. Photo: Reuters

New Chinese Covid-19 cases raise fears of fresh wave of infections as disease returns to Wuhan

  • Shulan city in country’s northeast goes into ‘wartime mode’ after a spike in cases, while the capital of Hubei province records six cases in a residential community
  • Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first identified, says it has sacked an official for mishandling disease controls

Two separate Covid-19 outbreaks in China, including one in Wuhan, have heightened fears of a fresh wave of infections across the country.

Shulan, a city in China’s northeastern Jilin province, went into “wartime mode” after a rise in local cases over the weekend, while an official was sacked in Wuhan, where the disease first emerged, for his handling of the situation.

Shulan has reported 14 cases over the past two days, all of which were linked to a 45-year-old woman who was diagnosed with Covid-19 on Thursday.

Mayor Jin Hua said the city will adopt strict containment measures, which include tests for large numbers of residents and all people coming back from aboard.

Other containment measures include stopping the sale of fever medication and sending all suspected or confirmed coronavirus patients to designated hospitals.

The woman at the centre of the outbreak worked in the city police’s laundry department and the authorities have been trying to trace her recent contacts. However, it is not known how she became infected.

According to Gao Cailin, the province’s deputy party secretary, the Jilin authorities have screened a total of 2,005 people so far, while 290 people have been quarantined as a result of contact tracing.

Coronavirus study points to vast number of cases under the radar in China

Shulan was only classified as “high risk” on Monday, but the disease may already have spread beyond the city.

Late last month one registered Shulan resident who was wanted by police on the other side of the country was found to be infected after he arrived in Sichuan province.

On April 28 the 30-year-old, identified only by his surname Ming, was detained in Yanji, another city in Jilin near the border with Russia and North Korea, where had been working in a car repair plant.

The following day he arrived in Gulin county in Sichuan and was tested by police.

Ming had not displayed any symptoms and was held overnight in a cell with nine other inmates but returned a positive test on April 30. Police have not said what crime he was wanted for.

Meanwhile in Wuhan, the capital of the central province of Hubei, six new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in the Sanmin residential community on Saturday and Sunday.

They were the first cases in the city since its strict lockdown conditions were lifted a month ago.

The city government said an official had been sacked for his poor control of the disease in the community.

The official, named Zhang Yuxin, was removed from his post as secretary of the local branch of the Communist Party.

Coronavirus: China reports 14 new infections as northeast city returns to partial lockdown

One of the new cases had been a close contact of another case that was reported on Saturday, the city’s health commission said, and the other four confirmed cases had been asymptomatic.

The Sanmin community’s roughly 5,000 residents will be given tests and those who come back negative will be given a green code that will allow them to leave the community to go to work, news portal Thepaper.cn reported on Monday.

“At present, Wuhan is still facing huge pressure to control the pandemic,” the health commission said. “We need to always bear in mind that we have to control both imported cases as well as local cases, and resolutely keep the resurgence of Covid-19 at bay.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Fears grow of new wave of infections as Covid-19 re-emerges at epicentre
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