Cities in China race to trace infections as outbreak grows

BEIJING • China reported a fourth day of new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases in a handful of cities, prompting alarmed local governments to double down on efforts to track potential carriers amid the country's zero-tolerance policy.

A total of 17 new local cases were reported for Tuesday, up from nine a day earlier, data from the National Health Commission showed yesterday.

Of the new local cases, eight were reported in Inner Mongolia, four in Gansu, and one each in Beijing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi and Ningxia, the commission said.

The bulk of the cases were in northern and north-western China.

The Beijing municipality is busy gearing up for its hosting of the 2022 Winter Games in February, and officials have vowed stringent efforts against the virus.

Beijing was starting to offer Covid-19 booster jabs to residents aged over 18 who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months, local media said yesterday.

Before Tuesday's case in Fengtai district, Beijing had recorded more than two months of zero new local cases. The confirmed case was a close contact of a recently confirmed case in Ningxia region on train K42 from Dunhuang in Gansu to Beijing.

Almost half of the 26 local cases found on Monday and Tuesday had close contacts with an elderly couple from Shanghai, who were part of a tour group along with five other seniors, and had travelled to Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi. The couple tested positive in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, on Saturday. And the other five tourists later also tested positive in Xi'an.

It remains unclear whether the couple were the source of the outbreak, or where they had contracted the virus.

After the couple's travel history was disclosed, many cities scrambled to trace those with contacts with the couple, requiring people who had been to places where those with detected cases had travelled to report to local authorities and get tested.

The city of Jiayuguan in north-western Gansu province even launched its second round of city-wide testing after an initial round yielded no positive results.

Tentative signs indicated there might be multiple sources of the coronavirus across China, which could complicate the country's efforts to seek zero infections.

Three of the five local cases found this week in Erenhot city, in Inner Mongolia, did not appear to have any connection with infected travellers in other cities, but were linked to a case detected on Oct 13 - a person who worked at a local logistics hub. It is unclear how this person was infected.

The total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in China had reached 96,601 by Tuesday, and 4,636 had died as a result of the virus since the pandemic started in late 2019.

China has fully vaccinated more than one billion people - more than 78 per cent of the population - as at mid-September, according to the National Health Commission.

Besides Beijing, booster shot programmes have been announced in at least 10 other Chinese provinces in recent weeks, including cities in Fujian province and the Xinjiang region, where local outbreaks have been reported in the past month.

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE