China recorded more than 13,000 cases of Covid-19 in one day on Sunday, the highest number since the peak of the first epidemic wave two years ago, and health authorities announced the discovery of a possible new under -variant of Omicron in the Shanghai region.
The “zero Covid” strategy, which China is one of the last countries to practice, allowed the country to record only a very low number of cases until last March. But this draconian policy, which aims to prevent new cases from emerging through massive lockdowns and testing, systematic isolation of the sick and near-closure of borders, is coming under pressure as Omicron spreads across the world. country.
Almost all of the 25 million inhabitants of Shanghai, the economic capital of China, have been confined since Saturday. The city has become in recent days the epicenter of a new wave of contamination linked to Omicron.
Authorities in Suzhou, west of Shanghai, have discovered a mutation of the Omicron variant that is not listed in any local or international database, state media reported on Sunday.
“This means that a new variant of Omicron has been discovered locally,” Xinhua said, citing the deputy director of the Suzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zhang Jun.
Several tens of millions of Chinese are also confined to the northeast of the country, the cradle of the automotive industry. On Sunday, a new large city in the region, Baicheng (1.5 million inhabitants) was in turn placed under a bell.
A total of 13,146 cases of Covid-19 were recorded on Sunday in China, the highest figure since the peak of the first wave in mid-February 2020.
These are “1,455 patients with symptoms” and “11,691 asymptomatic”, and “no new deaths have been reported”, the National Health Commission said in a statement, while the highly contagious Omicron variant , has spread to more than a dozen provinces.
Nearly 70% of the new cases were detected in Shanghai, said the Commission, after the tests carried out on all the inhabitants.
Faced with the epidemic rebound, several exhibition halls in the metropolis have been transformed in recent days into makeshift quarantine centers.
Parents have expressed their fear of being confined there if they test positive, and their concerns for their children, from whom they could be separated under strict isolation measures.
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