China's Wuhan reports first new Covid-19 cases since end of lockdown

PanARMENIAN.Net - Wuhan, the Chinese city where the global coronavirus pandemic began, on Monday reported its first cluster of new infections since a strict quarantine was relaxed in early April, Financial Times reports.

The setback occurred just over a week before China’s parliament was supposed to convene in Beijing for its delayed annual session, which is usually held in March.

It also coincided with a sharp uptick in new cases in South Korea, where the government’s successful efforts at containing the disease since late January had been hailed as a global model.

According to Wuhan health authorities, the five cases were discovered on Sunday in a single residential community and linked to an infection reported a day earlier — the first confirmed in the city since April 3. The state council dispatched an inspection team to Wuhan on Sunday and said in a statement that “we cannot ruin the results of what we’ve achieved”.

People in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province had been barred from leaving their hometowns from late January until April 8 and March 25 respectively. The lifting of restrictions signalled a shift in the Chinese government’s focus from combating locally transmitted cases to ones “imported” from abroad, mostly by returning Chinese nationals.