The comparison is not reassuring: for Chinese state media, the current wave of coronavirus cases across the country is the most serious since the appearance of Covid-19 in Wuhan at the end of 2019.
Since Tuesday, the number of cases recorded has been the highest in seven months, after a cluster in a test center that jumped the figures against the backdrop of an outbreak of the Delta variant.
The authorities had reduced the number of domestic contaminations to almost zero, allowing the economy to rebound despite severe border restrictions. But today the cases are increasing.
“Members and officials of the party have not yet performed their duty properly”
On Tuesday, the health authorities identified 143 new contaminations, of which 108 come from local contamination, and ten from an anti-Covid test center in the city of Yangzhou.
As a sign of anxiety over these relatively small outbreaks, several senior officials have received warnings about their mismanagement of mass testing, which is believed to have allowed the virus to spread. “A small number of party members and cadres have not yet done their duty properly,” said the Yangzhou authorities.
So far, the city of 4.6 million people has conducted five rounds of mass tests, taking 1.6 million samples in an attempt to stem the resurgence of the epidemic.
The figures for August 10 are the highest since January 2021, when the country recorded 144 new cases and 126 domestic contaminations, mainly in the North.