China: Over 8,000 quarantined due to newly discovered coronavirus cluster

Weeks after it seemed China had successfully contained the spread of novel coronavirus, the state media has reported that over 8,000 people have been quarantined in and around the Chinese city of Shulan in the northeastern province of Jilin. Shulan, Wuhan among other areas were the first ones to have reported cases of COVID-19 disease in China. Now, these regions are also among the places that began reporting new clusters of the novel virus due to domestic transmission since the government began easing restrictions. Just last week amid fears of the second wave of infections, Shulan had initiated “wartime measures” on detecting new cases. 

The National level health and inspection teams have also been sent to the area for enhancing contact tracing. While Shulan is a high-risk area in the area, according to reports Fengman and Chuanying districts are at medium-risk. Meanwhile, Jilin has ordered a ban on all outbound buses and tours from leaving the city. The city residents will only be allowed to leave if they provide multiple certificates including the company and community certificates for quarantine and nucleic acid test report that remains valid for 48 hours. However, as of May 17, China has recorded at least 82,947 confirmed cases with 4,633 deaths.

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Wuhan tests three million

While Shulan has again ramped up its measures to control the second wave of domestic transmission, another virus-hit area, Wuhan has tested at least three million of its residents since April and has plans to run COVID-19 tests on the entire population of 11 million. As life is slowly coming back to normalcy in the Asian superpower amid fears of a fresh wave of the epidemic, Chinese state media reported that Wuhan has set a goal of getting a clear number of asymptomatic cases.

The city has even prepared a plan of ten days to test every resident after six new cases of COVID-19 disease were discovered in a residential community earlier. Wuhan has nearly 400 asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection. 

Last month on April 8, Hubei province along with its capital Wuhan had lifted the several-months long lockdown that was imposed on January 23. The disease had cramped the area with the virus spreading like a wildfire. Since being discovered in the ‘seafood market’, the novel coronavirus has now spread to over 213 countries and territories. The COVID-19 disease has infected over 4.7 million people across the globe and has caused 313,260 deaths. 

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(Image Source: AP)