Via the South China Morning Post: Nanjing airport coronavirus cluster ‘spreads to 15 other Chinese cities’. Excerpt:
China’s Covid-19 control measures are under intense pressure after an airport cluster in Jiangsu province’s Nanjing is believed to have led to infections in 15 cities across the country in just over a week.
The spread is being fuelled by the highly infectious Delta variant that has now swept across 132 countries, according to the World Health Organization this week.
China’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus has put tremendous political pressure on the city and governing Jiangsu province, with senior officials admitting to the need to “deeply reflect” on lessons learned and improve their political judgment and understanding of epidemic control.
The Nanjing outbreak has already infected more than 200 people including at least 30 people in 15 other cities, with Beijing and Sichuan province’s Chengdu among them, according to various city statements.
The Nanjing cluster broke out last week with several cleaners at the city’s Lukou International Airport initially affected.
Public health experts believe the latest outbreak is still in the early stages. It is already larger than a May outbreak that mostly affected Guangdong and was the first community spread of the Delta variant in China, with 167 cases reported.
The health experts said more surveillance was needed to find out if there were more cases linked to the airport and if tougher control measures were needed.
Ineffective management has been blamed for the outbreak, thought to be connected to an international cargo flight more than two weeks ago.
Nine airport cleaners tested positive on July 20 during routine testing but by then had already infected colleagues and other service staff. At least 173 people in Nanjing have been infected including more than 60 cleaners, according to the city’s health authorities.
“The airport faced problems such as poor supervision and unprofessional management, and prevention and control measures were not implemented effectively,” said the Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s top anti-corruption body, in a website statement on Wednesday.
The airport did not separate cleaning staff responsible for international flights from domestic ones, exposing a serious lack of day-to-day supervision, the statement said. International and domestic flight operations were mixed together, meaning the virus was imported and has spread in China, it added.
