China is grappling with the highest number of new coronavirus cases that it has seen since nearly February as the communist nation has put at least two areas under quarantine.
“Officials said Monday that mainland China had 169 new confirmed cases of infection, with 61 of them described as ‘asymptomatic’ COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus,” NPR reported. “The government said 98 of the cases were ‘imported’ by people arriving from abroad. … The increase has sparked concern about a second wave of infections in China, which was the original epicenter of the pandemic.”
Amongst 49 new #coronavirus infections in #Heilongjiang they’d all crossed the #China #Russia border last week or earlier before small city of #Suifenhe locked down. Some initially tested negative but later became positive in quarantine. Some 1st asymptomatic later symptoms.
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) April 13, 2020
BBC China Correspondent Stephen McDonell noted that the 98 “imported” cases were all Chinese citizens returning to China after being out of the country.
The 98 international arrival cases are all Chinese citizens. I’m not sure about the other 10.
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) April 13, 2020
The news comes as China has had to lock down a highly populated county to the west of Shanghai and a city near the Russian border.
“China is opening a new field hospital in the city of Suifenhe, home to about 70,000 people, which was placed under lockdown yesterday morning,” CNN reported last week, citing the Chinese state-run media. “The city, in China’s far northeast, lies right by the Russian border — and it has seen a recent spike in” coronavirus cases.
Politico reported two weeks ago on the county that China put on lockdown:
Henan province in central China has taken the drastic measure of putting a mid-sized county in total lockdown as authorities try to fend off a second coronavirus wave in the midst of a push to revive the economy. Curfew-like measures came into effect on Tuesday in Jia county, near the city of Pingdingshan, with the area’s roughly 600,000 residents told to stay home, according to a notice on the country’s official microblog account.
Even more potentially alarming was a report that was published in Chinese-state run media last week that stated that there was another massive outbreak in Wuhan.
“In the past few days, however, it has tightened restrictions on some housing complexes, and said others will remain in place, after confirming dozens of new asymptomatic cases,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “An official newspaper said Monday there could be 10,000 to 20,000 such cases in Wuhan. The report was swiftly deleted online.”
A coronavirus tracker created by Johns Hopkins University stated that China has over 83,000 reported cases and over 3,300 reported deaths. However, the numbers that China reported on its coronavirus outbreak are widely considered to be lies, with China’s own allies even calling China’s numbers bogus.
Bloomberg News reported at the start of the month that U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that the numbers that China reported, both cases and deaths, were “intentionally incomplete” and that the “numbers are fake.”
A Washington Post analysis estimated the number of deaths in Wuhan alone was well north of 40,000:
The coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe officially claimed 2,563 lives in Wuhan, where it began in a market that sold exotic animals for consumption. But evidence emerging from the city as it stirs from its two-month hibernation suggests the real death toll is exponentially higher. …
Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes had returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, put the death toll at 46,800.