China Faces Its Largest Covid Outbreak In Two Years As Daily Cases Double To 3,500

Topline

China is facing its worst outbreak of Covid-19 cases since the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan, with the country on Tuesday reporting more than 3,500 new local cases as experts attribute the surge to the fast spreading BA.2 sublineage of the omicron variant.

Key Facts

China’s National Health Commission reported 3,507 new local Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, up from 1,337 on Monday.

The current outbreak appears to be largely centered around the northeastern city of Jilin, which reported 2,601 cases on Monday.

However, cases have also been reported in other parts of China including major urban centers like Shanghai and the capital Beijing.

In the first two weeks of March, China reported more than 10,000 new Covid-19 cases, making this the worst outbreak the country has faced since Wuhan in 2020.

News Peg

The current outbreak has challenged China’s ‘dynamic zero-Covid’ strategy that aims to prevent large-scale spread of the virus by squashing emerging clusters of cases through swift lockdowns and mass testing. The ongoing surge in cases has been attributed to the so-called “stealth omicron” variant also known as the BA.2 sub-variant. This sub-variant has been reported to spread faster than earlier omicron subvariants, which were significantly faster spreading that other variants like delta. BA.2 has been called the “stealth variant” because it is missing several mutations present on other omicron subvariants, making it harder to distinguish from older variants using PCR tests.

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