China is battling record coronavirus infection numbers as its fight against the Omicron variant intensifies. The city of Shanghai will now undergo a further round of citywide mass Covid testing over the next two days as infection numbers continue to increase.
“The Chinese mainland reported 13,146 local COVID-19 cases on Sunday, including 1,455 confirmed and 11,691 asymptomatic ones, the highest number of daily increase since the latest outbreak, which has already infected over 100,000 people.”
“The high transmission of the Omicron variant is another factor, he said, noting that it accounts for about 80 percent of the recent COVID-19 cases reported in China, with BA.2 and BA.1.1 subvariants being the most prevalent in the country.”
“Suzhou in East China’s Jiangsu Province, which borders Shanghai, discovered a confirmed coronavirus disease patient infected with a mutation VOC/Omicron variant BA.1.1, unidentified in previously found strains worldwide, posing new threats to the already dangerous situation in the region.”
The new iteration of the virus, isolated from a mild Covid-19 patient in a city less than 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Shanghai, evolves from the BA.1.1 branch of the omicron variant, Global Times reported, citing sequencing data from local health authorities. The report said the subtype doesn’t match other coronavirus that’s causing Covid in China nor those submitted to GISAID, where scientists around the world share the coronavirus they sequenced as a way to monitor mutations.
While one of the severest-hit regions in NE China’s Jilin has successfully curbed #COVID19, the infection curve has not seen signs of decline, & a new Omicron variant mutation was found in Suzhou, neighboring #Shanghai, which is the worst-hit area in Chinahttps://t.co/5SSeKZ36an
