China Is Fighting The Largest Covid Outbreak In Two Years, With Cases Doubling Within 24 Hours

On Sunday, China reported over 3,400 daily Covid-19 cases, more than doubling the previous day's total, prompting lockdowns in viral hotspots as the country battles its worst outbreak in two years.

As roughly 19 provinces combat clusters of the Omicron and Delta strains, officials in Shanghai have closed schools and shut down many cities in the north-eastern part of the country.

According to an official, the city of Jilin has been largely shut down, with hundreds of neighborhoods walled off, while Yanji, a city of roughly 700,000 people on the border with North Korea, has been completely shut down.

When clusters of the virus emerged in China in late 2019, the country implemented a strong zero-Covid policy that included quick lockdowns, travel restrictions, and mass testing.

However, the most recent flare-up, which is being fueled by the highly transmissible Omicron form and an increase in asymptomatic cases, is putting that strategy to the test.

On Sunday, Zhang Yan, a representative of the Jilin province health commission, conceded that the local government's virus reaction had been inadequate thus far.

"In some regions, the emergency response system is insufficiently robust, and there is a lack of awareness of the Omicron variant's characteristics... He remarked during a government press briefing that his judgment had been incorrect.

Jilin residents have undergone six rounds of mass testing, according to municipal officials. More than 500 instances of the Omicron variety were detected in the city on Sunday.

On Friday, the neighboring city of Changchun, which has a population of nine million people and is a major industrial center, was shut down.

According to official pronouncements, the smaller cities of Siping and Dunhua, both in Jilin province, were closed down on Thursday and Friday.

According to state media, the mayor of Jilin and the director of the Changchun health commission were fired on Saturday, demonstrating the political pressure on local officials to combat virus clusters.