Rising number of corona cases: nervousness is growing in China

China had got used to the absence of Corona – now the number of infections is rising again. The Vice President of Zimbabwe’s visit to Beijing caused a stir: there was one case in his delegation.

The Chinese authorities reported almost 80 new Covid-19 cases across the country. In addition, there are more than 300 new infections in recent weeks. With a population of around 1.4 billion people, these are actually negligible numbers, but the nervousness in the People’s Republic is still great. Because the corona outbreak of the past few weeks is the strongest in more than half a year.

Hardly any corona rules

In the country of origin of the Covid 19 pandemic, the government is pursuing a consistent zero Covid strategy – and the population has got used to it. There are practically no more corona restrictions in China. That could change again now.

The number of cases has recently risen sharply, especially in Nanjing in the eastern Chinese part of Jiangsu. On July 20, nine cleaners at Nanjing Airport tested positive for the particularly contagious Delta variant.

All around nine million residents of Nanjing have been tested since then, and some have already been tested two or three times. Offices, authorities and many public buildings in the city are closed. Many offices and companies in Nanjing will also remain closed.

Travel in the country again with many requirements

In the past few days, new Covid cases have also been reported in other Chinese parts of the country, including in densely populated Shandong, Hubei, Yunnan and the capital Beijing. The authorities have been making traveling within China more difficult for a few days. Many cities require negative tests when people arrive from other parts of the country.

The vaccination campaign in China is making progress, and according to government data, more than 1.6 billion vaccine doses have been administered. But many people are not convinced of the effectiveness of the domestic vaccine.

The state seeks trust in its own vaccines

Shao Yiming from the State Bureau of Disease Control denied the doubts at a televised press conference yesterday. “For the first time in history, coronavirus vaccines are being used in humans. So there is still a lot of data to be collected on effectiveness. The results so far show that none of the vaccines used around the world are 100 percent effective.” But the Chinese vaccines also provided good protection against severe courses of Covid-19, emphasized Shao.

Regardless of this, the latest corona outbreak in China raises many questions. About how the outbreak at Nanjing Airport could come about – despite strict test regulations and up to three weeks of compulsory quarantine for everyone entering China. Allegedly, the virus was brought in via a flight from Russia.

A corona case caused a stir in the delegation of the Zimbabwean Vice President, who is currently privately in Beijing. After a member of Constantine Chiwenga’s delegation tested positive, a luxury hotel in central Beijing had to be cordoned off. Hundreds of people have been quarantined, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Is the case kept secret?

The case is explosive because the capital region has been protected against corona cases by the authorities for months. It is also noteworthy that, according to the “Wall Street Journal”, the case did not appear in the official Chinese corona statistics.

At the same time, China’s state and party leadership is still trying everything to keep the international discussion about the origin of the Covid 19 pandemic small. Again and again she warns against a “politicization” of the search for the origin of the corona virus.

The lung virus was detected for the first time at the end of 2019 in Wuhan, central China. China’s state and party leadership has been spreading rumors for months that the true origin of Covid-19 could be in the United States, in a military laboratory in the US state of Maryland.