China reports highest daily increase in COVID-19 cases in two months

After witnessing a plunging rate of COVID-19 infection for two straight months, China reported its highest daily toll on April 4. The country reported a total of 32 new cases, 15 out of which were detected in Ruili, a city in Yunnan province that borders Myanmar. Genetic analysis of the infected cases showed that the virus was imported from Myanmar. Later, state-controlled media confirmed that 11 out of the 15 identified local cases were citizens of Myanmar.

The rest of the 17 cases were identified as imported cases from overseas. In the aftermath, health authorities have sealed the infected area, putting residents under mandatory home quarantine. Additionally, they have initiated a robust vaccination drive, in a bid to build Ruili’s herd immunity. The latest update has now pushed the overall coronavirus caseload to 90,305 while the death toll remains unchanged at 4,636. 

Vaccination push 

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now pushing government officials, bank workers and college goers to get their jabs. The rekindled push to the country’s inoculation drive comes as experts warned that a stalled immunisation process could wipe up the country's advantage of curbing the infection at the earliest. At present, the country is administrating five million doses every day as compared to a million at the start of the year, Bloomberg reported. 

Experts, especially in the West, believe that the coronavirus pandemic originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Earlier this year, a team of experts affiliated with the WHO landed in China to probe into the origins of the infection. They presented their initial report last week wherein they confirmed virus origins in the wet markets of Wuhan. Additionally, they nullified that the infection originated in a Chinese lab. Although, they accepted that the coronavirus probably emerged in bats and then jumped off to humans via an intermediary animal. But, they said that there was not enough evidence to identify species or to pinpoint where the spillover first occurred. 

Image Credits: Associated Press