04 August,2021 07:44 AM IST | Beijing | Agencies
A child undergoes a Covid-19 test in China’s Wuhan on Tuesday. Pic/AFP
Chinese authorities announced on Tuesday mass Coronavirus testing in Wuhan as an unusually wide series of Covid-19 outbreaks reached the city where the disease was first detected in late 2019.
Wuhan, a provincial capital of 11 million people in central China, is the latest city to undergo city-wide testing. Three cases were confirmed there on Monday, its first non-imported cases in more than a year.
China has largely curbed Covid-19 at home after the initial outbreak that devastated Wuhan and over time spread to the rest of China and globally. Since then, authorities have tamped down and controlled the disease whenever it pops up with quick lockdowns and mass testing to isolate infected people.
The current outbreaks, while still in the hundreds of cases in total, have spread much more widely than previous ones, reaching multiple provinces and cities including the capital, Beijing. Many of the cases have been identified as the highly contagious delta variant that is driving a resurgence in many countries.
The National Health Commission said on Tuesday that 90 new cases had been confirmed the previous day, 61 locally spread ones and 29 among people who had recently arrived from abroad. Most of the local cases are still in Jiangsu province.
Australian flag carrier, Qantas on Tuesday announced that 2,500 of its frontline employees will be stood down amid the ongoing Covid-19 lockdowns and border closures across the country. In a press statement, the airline said the move is a "temporary measure" that aims to ultimately preserve jobs once states begin to re-open their borders and domestic flying resumes, reports Xinhua news agency.
Australia's opposition proposed a cash incentive for citizens to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as Sydney continued its battle against the latest outbreak triggered by the Delta variant. Anthony Albanese, the leader of the Labor Party, revealed a plan to offer every Australian who is fully vaccinated by December 1 a A$300 cash bonus.
Seventy per cent of US adults have had at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine amid an ongoing resurgence of new cases attributed to the Delta variant, according to data published by the CDC. The milestone came about a month behind President Joe Biden's Fourth of July goal, reports Xinhua news agency. As of Monday, 70 per cent of US adults aged 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose while 60.6 per cent of American adults are fully vaccinated, as per the CDC.
4,46,834
No. of new cases reported globally in the past 24 hours
19,91,62,828
Total no. of cases worldwide
42,40,761
Total no. of deaths worldwide
Source: WHO/Johns Hopkins
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