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Covid returns to Wuhan

Here's the latest news from the global pandemic.

Back where it started

Covid-19 is back in Wuhan, the central Chinese city that became infamous as the site of the first deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

It's bad news not only for Wuhan and its residents, but for the world. The Chinese government acted decisively when confronted with the pathogen at the start of 2020, building hospitals over the course of a weekend to care for patients and shutting down the entire city of 11 million people.

The approach worked. Wuhan had been virus-free since containing the initial outbreak, thanks in large part to aggressive testing, contact tracing and mitigation measures like wearing masks and social distancing.

The rise of the more infectious delta variant, combined with pandemic fatigue, however, means the tried-and-true methods that crushed more than 30 previous flare-ups seem to have lost some of their power. The number of people infected in Wuhan, while still small, has been increasing, with eight cases diagnosed on Aug. 2 alone. They're among more than 400 infections diagnosed across China as part of the latest cluster, which started last month in the eastern city of Nanjing.

The New Year celebration on Jan. 1 in Wuhan.

Photographer: Getty Images

The current Wuhan outbreak is a symbolic blow in China, which worked hard to eradicate the pathogen entirely. Given the city's special status and the attention it attracts from both China and abroad, the government can't over-prioritize its Covid response, Hubei governor Wang Zhonglin said in a statement posted on the provincial government's website late Monday night.

So far, it doesn't look like the spate of cases in Wuhan will escalate to the staggering levels of the initial outbreak. That's the situation in much of the developing world, where vaccinations are sparse and the rise of delta variant is spurring mounting infections and deaths. China has one of the world's highest immunization rates, with nearly 1.7 billion shots given, enough to protect about 60% of the population. Though less effective than the mRNA vaccines developed by Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna, the good news is they appear to protect against severe illness and death.

The spread of the virus across the country, meanwhile, shows that even the toughest containment regime in the world can't keep up. There are cases in more than half of China's provinces and in the capital city of Beijing. It reaches from the southwestern region near Vietnam, stretches up the coast toward North Korea and penetrates deep into the heartland.

Where—and how—it will stop is anyone's guess.—Michelle Fay Cortez and Dong Lyu

Track the vaccines

Do We Need Delta Covid Shots?

Breakthrough infections are raising concerns about the effectiveness of the available vaccines, and delta is spreading quickly among unvaccinated younger people. Inoculations targeting the highly transmissible delta variant may now be needed, according to researchers leading a large English study. Read the full story here

People dancing at Egg London nightclub in London.

Photographer: Rob Pinney/Getty Images

 

What you should read

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