China reports first Covid death in more than a year

China is currently fighting its biggest wave of locally transmitted Covid-19 cases since the initial outbreak in Wuhan in 2020. The nation reported two Covid deaths on Saturday, the first recorded rise in the death toll since January 2021. China reported 2,157 new Covid-19 cases from community transmission on Saturday, with the majority in Jilin province. China on Friday ruled out relaxing its much-criticised "dynamic zero-Covid" policy of restricting international travel and minimising contacts with the outside world. Under this policy, China has drastically cut international travel which has affected several lakhs of international students, including over 23,000 Indian students, mostly studying medicine who are stuck in India following the cancellation of visas and flights.

Hong Kong's cumulative coronavirus infections have exceeded one million as the city grapples with a widespread outbreak that has killed more people than the reported Covid-19 deaths in all of mainland China. Health officials reported 20,079 confirmed infections on Friday, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 1,016,944. The total number of deaths in Hong Kong — 5,401 — has exceeded the 4,636 fatalities recorded in mainland China. 

Meanwhile, after a few weeks of decline in global Covid cases, the virus is back. Countries such as China and South Korea are hitting new highs in terms of daily Covid-19 cases, mostly driven by the Omicron variant. On Saturday, South Korea reported 381,454 new Covid-19 infections, raising the total caseload to 9,038,938, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). These figures mark a sharp drop in cases from the country’s all-time high of 621,328 daily cases on Thursday.  Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to US President Joe Biden, has warned that the US could soon see the imposition of lockdown measures if cases spike. He said the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron could soon increase the rate of infections in the US. He has advised ihat citizens of the US learn to “pivot” back and forth between normal life and living under lockdown.