China records biggest Covid spike since pandemic began

China has recorded the biggest Covid-19 spike since the outbreak began, with cases doubling earlier this week.

The National Health Commission reported 3,507 domestically transmitted cases on Monday across more than a dozen provinces and municipalities, 1,337 more than the day before.

The nation has actively pursued a 'Covid-zero' strategy since the virus was first detected, imposing hard lockdowns on residents when outbreaks emerge, in a bid to control the spread.

Jilin, in northeast China, recorded the biggest jump, with 3,000 new cases on Tuesday, according to the National Health Commission.

Officials have banned the 24.1 million residents from travelling in and out of the province without notifying local police

On Sunday, China placed all 13 million residents in Shenzhen city in lockdown as Covid-19 virus cases doubled nationwide to nearly 3,400.

The Omicron variant is testing the strategy with some experts worried that locking down the country's biggest cities — Beijing and Shenzhen — will have economic impacts.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior health policy analyst at US think tank the Council on Foreign Relations, said China's zero tolerance approach is becoming more costly to the country but also showing to be less effective against the highly infectious Omicron, according to Reuters.

University predicts cases will be 'under control' by early April

A Covid-19 forecasting system run by Lanzhou University in China's northwest predicted that the current round of infections would eventually be brought under control in early April after an accumulated total of around 35,000 cases.

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In a piece published on Monday, the university said that while the latest outbreak was the most serious on the mainland since Wuhan in 2020, China could bring it under control as long as stringent curbs remained in place.

As of March 14, mainland China had reported 120,504 cases with confirmed symptoms, including both local ones and those arriving from outside the mainland. There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

with Reuters

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