Aug 3, 2021: Authorities in Wuhan, China have announced that they will test its entire population for COVID-19 after the central Chinese city where the novel corona virus first emerged, reported its first local cases in more than a year and the country moved to stamp out a slew of outbreaks connected with the Delta variant.

The city of 11 million is “swiftly launching comprehensive nucleic acid testing of all residents”, senior official of Chinese city Wuhan, Li Tao said on Tuesday.

Chinese authorities announced Monday that the city has found seven cases of locally migrating migrant workers, a year after the initial outbreak ended with an unusual lockdown in early 2020.

China has confined residents of entire cities to their homes, suspended domestic transport links and launched large-scale testing in recent days as it battles the spread of its largest corona virus in months.

Nationwide, China reported at least 90 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases in the mainland as of Tuesday, August 2, compared to 98, according to the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC). In the last 10 days, the number of cases has risen to more than 400.

Of the newly confirmed cases, 61 were transferred locally, the health authority said. This compares with 55 local cases from the day before. A total of 45 local patients with symptoms were reported in eastern Chinese Jiangsu Province, including five in Nanjing City and 40 in Yangzhou City, the provincial government said Tuesday.

NHC figures show six locally transmitted cases in Hunan Province and three in Hubei Province. Hubei Province said the three patients were found in the capital, Wuhan.

No new deaths were reported.

The Chinese province of Hunan reported an outbreak of Covid 19 in July due to various delta cases. Hunan shares a border with Myanmar, where coronavirus infections have increased.

The Chinese NHC said Tuesday that as of August 2, 93,193 confirmed cases had been recorded in mainland China, leaving the total number of deaths unchanged at 4,636.

The city government said Tuesday that the more than 1.3 million residents of Yangzhou’s city center are now confined to their homes, allowing only one person per household to be sent out daily to purchase necessities.

The announcement follows similar moves in Zhangjiajie, a popular tourist destination in central China’s Hunan Province, and affects a total of more than 2 million people in the nearby city of Zhuzhou.

The pandemic spread from Nanjing to Hunan last month when people connected to the cluster at Nanjing Airport attended a theatrical performance in Zhangjiajie.

Since then, officials have tracked down thousands of people who attended the show and urged tourists not to travel to areas where cases have been found.

Beijing, meanwhile, has barred tourists from entering the capital during summer vacation trips and told residents not to leave unless necessary, with top officials saying no expense will be spared to guard the Chinese capital.

By August 2, one local case was reported in Beijing, Shanghai and Fujian Province.

China was proud of its success in bringing domestic cases to a virtual zero after the first outbreak of the corona virus in Wuhan, a landmark which helped revive the Chinese economy.

But the latest outbreak is threatening that success with more than 400 domestic cases since mid-July.

On Monday, the Chinese state-owned Global Times quoted the country’s top epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, as saying that China needed to vaccinate 83% of its population in order to gain herd immunity.

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