This archive report was first published on 31 July 2021.
China's capital, Beijing, is racing to contain its worst coronavirus outbreak in months, with health officials blaming the highly infectious Delta variant for a surge in infections spanning 14 provinces.
As of July 31, 2021, China reported 328 symptomatic infections in July, nearly equal to the total number of local cases from February to June.
According to Mi Feng, spokesman for the National Health Commission (NHC), the main strain circulating at present is the Delta variant, which poses an even greater challenge to virus prevention and control work.
The outbreak is geographically the largest to hit China in several months, challenging the country's early success in snuffing out the pandemic within its borders after Covid-19 seeped out of Wuhan.
More than 260 infections nationwide have been linked to the cluster in Nanjing, where nine cabin cleaners at an international airport tested positive on July 20.
As a result, hundreds of thousands have already been locked down in Jiangsu province, while Nanjing has tested all 9.2 million residents twice.
Health officials are now scrambling to track people nationwide who recently travelled from Nanjing or Zhangjiajie, and have urged tourists not to travel to areas where cases have been found.
According to Feng Zijian, virologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Covid vaccine's protection against the Delta variant may have somewhat declined, but the current vaccine still has a good preventative and protective effect against the Delta variant.
