Countries in Oceania moved to ease coronavirus restrictions on Monday as China’s city of Wuhan announced a new cluster of infections, raising worries of a resurgence at ground zero of the pandemic.
May 11 (UPI) — Countries in Oceania moved to ease coronavirus restrictions on Monday as China’s city of Wuhan announced a new cluster of infections, raising worries of a resurgence at ground zero of the pandemic.
Chinese health officials on Monday announced 17 new cases of the coronavirus, five of which were recorded in Wuhan where the disease first emerged late last year before spreading the world over.
Of the new infections, one is the wife of an 89-year-old man who was confirmed positive a day earlier and was the first confirmed infection in the city since April 3, China’s state-run CNA News reported.
The lockdown was lifted days after Wuhan’s last infection, and cars, trains and other forms of transportation were permitted to leave the city for the first time in nearly 80 days on April 8.
China, the former epicenter of the virus, on Monday also reported zero deaths — a trend that began on April 15 when it reported its most recent death to the virus, according to data from China’s National Health Commission.
Confirmation of the cluster comes a day after China’s northeastern Jilin Province imposed martial law on Shulan city where 11 people contracted the virus from a laundrywoman, according to state-run Global Times.
Shulan raised its epidemic-response to its highest level, making it the only Chinese city to currently take such measures to fight the coronavirus.
The new cases lifted China’s total to 82,918 infections and 4,633 deaths.
Globally, it sat in 11th place and third in Asian in number of infections, according to worldometers.
