Delta variant on rise in China’s Wuhan

Virus cases increase even as lockdowns, mass testing, transit shutdowns ordered

BEIJING — China suspended flights and trains Tuesday, canceled professional basketball league games and announced mass coronavirus testing in Wuhan as widening outbreaks of the delta variant reached the city where the disease was first detected in late 2019.

While the total number of cases is still in the hundreds, they are far more widespread than anything China has dealt with since the initial outbreak that devastated Wuhan in early 2020 and over time spread to the rest of the country and the world.

China has not eliminated but largely curbed covid-19 with quick lockdowns and mass testing to isolate infected people whenever cases pop up. Most previous outbreaks didn’t spread far beyond a city or province. This time, cases have been confirmed in more than 35 cities in 17 of China’s 33 provinces and regions.

The cities of Nanjing and Yangzhou have canceled all domestic flights, and Beijing has halted long-distance trains from 23 stations. The Chinese Basketball Association said that play would be suspended because of the pandemic.

Wuhan, a provincial capital of 11 million people in central China, is the latest city to undergo citywide testing. Three cases were confirmed there Monday, its first nonimported cases in more than a year.

They were among 90 new cases confirmed nationwide the previous day, the National Health Commission said Tuesday. Of those, 61 were locally spread ones and the rest among people who had recently arrived from abroad.

Most of the local cases are still in Jiangsu province, where an outbreak started at the airport in Nanjing, the provincial capital, and has spread to other parts of the province and beyond. Authorities reported 45 new cases, five in Nanjing and 40 in the city of Yangzhou 65 miles away, where a second round of mass testing was underway.

Five other provinces and the cities of Beijing and Shanghai reported new local cases in the single digits. In Shanghai, the nation’s largest city, a driver working at one of its two main airports tested positive. Beijing has reported five cases in recent days.

The Nanjing outbreak, which has been traced to the delta variant, is the source of the cases in most other places. Separately, delta variant outbreaks in two other places have been linked to neighboring Burma, which has seen a sharp rise in infections.

Government-affiliated scientists have said Chinese vaccines are less effective against the new strains of the coronavirus but still offer some protection. Only Chinese vaccines are currently being given in China, where authorities say more than 1.6 billion doses have been administered.

INDONESIA CASES JUMP

In Indonesia, Irman Pahlepi is back at work in Jakarta’s Dr. Suyoto public hospital, immediately resuming his duties treating covid-19 patients after recovering from an infection himself — for the second time.

With numbers of infections in Indonesia skyrocketing and deaths steadily climbing, health care workers are being depleted as the virus spares nobody, Pahlepi, 30, felt he had no option but to jump right back in.

“We have so many extra patients to treat compared to last year,” he said. “The number of covid-19 patients is four times higher now than during the previous highest spike in January.”

Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country, had its deadliest day with 2,069 deaths from covid-19 on July 27, and fatalities remain high.

As of Sunday, total official cases stood at more than 3.4 million with 97,291 deaths, though with poor testing and many people dying at home, the real figures are thought to be considerably higher.

As the region grapples with a new wave fueled by the delta variant, Indonesia’s death rate hit a seven-day rolling average of 6.5 per 1 million Sunday, second only to Burma and far higher than India’s peak rate of 3.04 that it hit in May during the worst of its outbreak.

Among the dead in Indonesia are more than 1,200 health care workers, including 598 doctors, according to the risk mitigation team of the Indonesian Medical Association. The doctors included at least 24 who were fully vaccinated.

Many others are exhausted from the workload, said Mahesa Paranadipa, who coleads the mitigation team, making them more likely to fall ill, like Pahlepi.

“We are worried about overburdened workloads lasting for a long time, causing potential burnout conditions,” Paranadipa said. “This fatigue causes the immunity of health care workers to decrease.”

Acknowledging the risks faced by health care workers, Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said Monday that a top priority is giving them a third dose.

Most who have been vaccinated have received Sinovac, which appears to be less effective against the delta variant, and Indonesia has already begun administering booster shots.

As of Sunday, total official cases stood at more than 3.4 million with 97,291 deaths, though with poor testing and many people dying at home, the real figures are thought to be considerably higher.