Covid Takes A Turn For The Worse In China; Country Reports First Death In Over A Year
The hashtag #CovidIsNotOver trending on Twitter has yet again reminded everyone that the coronavirus pandemic is not over. After a few weeks of seeing a global decline in Covid-19 cases, the virus is back haunting several countries in the country. Nations such as China and South Korea are reporting a new high of cases that were never seen before, mostly by the Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Currently, China is witnessing its worst outbreak since the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan. The country has reported a sharp increase in the number of coronavirus cases due to the highly transmissible Omicron strain.
China Reports First Death In Over A Year
China’s health authorities announced Saturday that two COVID-19 deaths occurred on Saturday, the first since January 2021. Both fatalities were recorded in Jilin province and were the result of their underlying diseases, according to Jiao Yahui, a National Health Commission official, who spoke at a news conference on Saturday. She went on to say that one of them had not been inoculated against COVID-19.
Jilin accounted for the majority of the 2,157 new community transmissions reported on Saturday. A travel ban has been implemented across the province, with required police permission to traverse borders. Since the beginning of March, China has reported over 29,000 confirmed cases nationwide. Officials have vowed to double down on the zero-tolerance campaign to curb several outbreaks across China, which has had its largest increase since late 2019.
Meanwhile, Hongkong also facing the worst surge in COVID cases reported over a million cases on Friday, followed by more than 16 thousand new infections on Saturday. Also, the number of deaths has already exceeded mainland China.
Meanwhile, US To Impose Lockdown To Curb The Surge
Dr Anthony Fauci, the principal medical advisor to US President Joe Biden, has warned that if the new BA.2 subvariant increases the prevalence of infections among Americans, the US may face harsher lockdown measures. In an interview, Fauci also requested people to pivot back and forth with the measures that had taken place earlier.
“If in fact, we do see a turnaround and a resurgence, we have to be able to pivot and go back to any degree of mitigation that is commensurate with what the situation is,” he said in an interview with CNN.
