China's Covid cases rise as outbreak grows

Mainland China posted a steep jump in daily Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, with new symptomatic cases more than doubling from a day earlier to a two-year high as a virus outbreak expanded rapidly in the country’s northeast.

China reported 5,280 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, more than double the previous day’s tally as the highly-transmissible Omicron variant spreads across a country which has tethered tightly to a ‘zero-Covid’ strategy.

China’s caseload is still tiny by global standards, but health experts said the rate of increase in daily cases over the next few weeks will be a crucial factor in determining whether China’s tough “dynamic clearance” approach – which aims to contain each outbreak – is still effective against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.

Jilin officials should step up the preparation of temporary hospitals and designated hospitals and make use of idle venues to ensure all infections and their close contacts are isolated, a local Communist Party authority-backed paper said, citing the provincial head of the Party.

The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at 1,768 compared with 906 a day earlier.

There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

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.