Coronavirus: China tests over 250,000 people for virus after new cluster emerges

After a handful of new cases were detected in the southern city of Chengdu, China has tested nearly 2,50,000 people for coronavirus in recent days. According to local Chinese media outlets, local health officials have said that the deadly virus was detected on food stored in their fridge and on a chopping board in their flat. It was further reported that as of Tuesday, almost 255,200 residents in the city had been swabbed for COVID tests, with six confirmed cases and one symptomatic patient. 

The Chinese local authorities informed that schools and kindergartens in the Pidu district where the cases emerged have closed, with students and teachers to quarantine and be tested for the virus. The footage on state TV also showed people in a park standing in queues in a bid to be tested by health officials in hazmat suits. While China has largely been able to control the domestic transmission, state media, on the other hand, have blamed the recent clusters on imports of frozen food and other shipments. 

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China on COVID origin 

Meanwhile, the virus had first surfaced in China last year. On the issue of COVID-19 origin, Chinese media reports have been stating that the Coronavirus did not start in Wuhan. Ever since Zeng Guang, an ex-epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that coronavirus originated elsewhere before it appeared in China in December 2019, the state-controlled media of the Communist State have directed all their resources in propagating the claim as fact. 

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also indicated the same saying it doesn't necessarily mean that the virus originated in China, even though the country was the first in the world to report cases. Chinese scientists have also submitted a paper to science journal The Lancet, wherein they have suggested that the virus may have originated in the Indian subcontinent well before it appeared in China. The paper is awaiting peer review before it can be published. 

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China is yet to provide any solid evidence to back the claim, which western scientists say is nothing but 'a way to whitewash' itself. China's reputation at the international stage has been tarnished after it emerged that the virus originated from a seafood market in Wuhan, which was operating illegally. 

China has reassured that it would allow international experts to enter the country in order to investigate the animal origins of COVID-19, World Health Organization said on November 23. The UN agency, in July, had sent a team of experts to lay the groundwork for investigation. However, it has remained unclear whether international scientists would be allowed inside China to conduct epidemiological studies and identify the first human cases of COVID-19 and source of infection.  

(Image: AP) 

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