Fresh test for Wuhan as cluster sparks mass virus screening
WUHAN, China — Nervous residents of China's pandemic epicentre of Wuhan queued up across the city to be tested for the novel coronavirus on Thursday after a new cluster of cases sparked a mass screening campaign.
Lines of residents keeping their social distance formed at makeshift testing sites set up under tents in parking lots, parks and residential communities as rain trickled down in the metropolis of 11 million people.
"This is a good thing. It's a way to be responsible towards others and to yourself," a 40-year-old man told AFP after completing the process.
The man had already been tested 10 days before, but given Wuhan's history as the source of the virus and China's worst-hit city he welcomed a little extra assurance.
"If you have the opportunity, wouldn't you do it again?" he asked.
The previously unknown contagion emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, prompting the Chinese government to impose a tight lockdown on the city on January 23, isolating the industrial and transport centre from the rest of the country and confining residents to their homes.
According to government figures more than 3,800 people have died from COVID-19 in the city, accounting for the vast majority of fatalities in China.
The quarantine was only fully lifted in early April, and life is slowly returning to normal.
But Wuhan was given a fresh jolt when several new local infections emerged last weekend after more than a month in which none were reported.
Fearful of a reliving the virus nightmare, officials have launched a drive to conduct nucleic acid tests on the city's entire population.
Men, women, children and the elderly filed forward to medical workers in head-to-toe white protective suits and plastic face shields, who recorded their personal details before quickly jabbing a swab into the backs of their throats.
On edge
Some remained anxious.
"I know this plan requiring the city to do large-scale testing serves as a basic safeguard. I wasn't planning to get myself tested," said a woman who did not give her name.
"But the safety measures inside are really bad. (People) are too close and the testing person handled a lot of samples from people but I didn't see him wash his hands."
China has largely brought the novel coronavirus under control, but has been on edge recently about a potential second wave of infections as it has lifted lockdowns and restrictions across the country.
Besides the six new Wuhan cases, virus clusters have appeared in recent weeks in the northeastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang, which border Russia.
President Xi Jinping told a Communist Party leadership meeting on Thursday that containment measures must be stepped up in Jilin, Heilongjiang and Wuhan "to forestall resurgence of infections", according to the official Xinhua news agency.
"We must never allow our hard-earned previous achievements on epidemic control to be made in vain," Xi said.
With the virus taking hold in other nations, China has barred most foreigners from entering the country.
Despite the lingering concerns, pandemic-hardened residents of Wuhan have done their best to resume their lives.
Dozens of people kicked up their heels to Chinese folk music on a promenade by the Yangtze River on Wednesday night, shrugging off the concerns of a new wave.
Couples wearing masks pranced under street lamps, with the men leading the women into turns near a bridge lit with huge Chinese characters saying: "Go Wuhan".
"I'm very happy (to be dancing outside)," said Qiu Jumei, a 53-year-old hotel waitress.
"The atmosphere wasn't the same when I was at home and dancing alone. It was not fun," she added. "This is much better."
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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