Chinese government officials are facing punishment over negligence in handling coronavirus delta variant outbreak.
According to Bloomberg, the COVID-19 outbreak in the country has spawned nearly 900 symptomatic infections across China in less than a month.
This resurgence, is complicating Beijing’s strategy of keeping the virus out entirely.
More than 30 officials nationwide, ranging from mayors and local health directors to the heads of hospitals and airports, have been punished for negligence and mishandling local outbreaks, according to the state-backed Global Times.
The eastern Chinese city of Yangzhou issued warnings to five officials for mishandling mass testing that they said allowed the virus to continue spreading.
The city has overtaken nearby Nanjing, where the delta-driven outbreak first started, as the biggest hotspot in China, with 308 confirmed cases reported as of Monday.
Six patients are critically ill and if any were to die, it would be China’s first COVID-19 death in more than six months.
China reported 124 cases on Thursday, the National Health Commission (NHC) said, up from 85 a day earlier. Of the new confirmed infections, 80 were locally transmitted, up from 62 a day earlier, it added.
Confirmed cases are patients who display symptoms such as a cough or fever, or signs of infection when scanned. China does not include symptomless cases in its tally until signs of disease show up.
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The latest infections were mainly in the provincial city of Yangzhou on the lower reaches of the Yangtze river, near the commercial hub of Shanghai.
Reuters reports that to keep the virus within its borders, Yangzhou closed the passenger entrances of two railway stations on Friday.
It has already suspended domestic flights, and the flow of taxis and ride-hailing vehicles with other cities.
The coronavirus first emerged in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan in Hubei province, but China had until recently largely managed to prevent any major local outbreaks sparked by infections imported from abroad.
Since July 20, when the first cases of the current outbreak were detected in the Jiangsu city of Nanjing, the virus has spread to about 40 cities, including the capital, Beijing.
Nanjing and Yangzhou now account for more than 70% of local confirmed cases in China since late July, though not all the local cases are linked to the two cities.
This week, NHC official He Qinghua said he expected China to bring the outbreak under control within weeks if local authorities took sufficient measures, though he acknowledged that efforts would be complicated.
