China battles worst Covid outbreak, lockdowns reimposed

China reported nearly 3,400 daily Covid-19 cases on Sunday, double the previous day, forcing lockdowns on virus hotspots as the country contends with its gravest outbreak in two years. A nationwide surge in cases has seen authorities close schools in Shanghai and lock down several north-eastern cities, as almost 19 provinces battle clusters of the Omicron and Delta variants. The city of Jilin has been partially locked down, with hundreds of neighbourhoods sealed up, an official announced Sunday, while Yanji, an urban area of nearly 700,000 bordering North Korea, was fully closed off.

Some local health authorities have attributed the surge in cases in China to the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible but causes less severe symptoms than the original Covid-19 virus, the a South China Morning Post report said. the Chinese government put the high-tech Shenzhen city under lockdown. The city has a population of over 17 million. Apart from total lockdowns, authorities are also imposing local curbs on schools, restaurants, malls and other public places to control the spread of the virus.The mayor of Jilin and the head of the Changchun health commission were dismissed from their jobs Saturday, state media reported, in a sign of the political imperative placed on local authorities to squash virus clusters. As cases rise, the country’s national health commission announced Friday that they would introduce the use of rapid antigen tests.