Society

The Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus has yesterday spread to 15 provinces and municipalities on the mainland since it was first detected on July 20 in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province in eastern China. As local authorities try to stem the outbreak, lockdowns and travel restrictions have been imposed in many parts of the country. In the latest development, Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak that started in late 2019, will begin testing its 11 million people, after seven locally transmitted cases have been recorded.  In Zhangjiajie, the scenic city in Hunan province in central China known for its spectacular landscape, both local residents and tourists have been barred from leaving, after 13 confirmed infections were identified.   In Nanjing, the population has been put through three rounds of COVID-19 tests. Lukou district was designated a high-risk area and 31 nearby districts medium-risk, according to local media reports. So far, the city has recorded 220 confirmed cases of infection, of which six are classified as severe. Thousands of citizens who reside in medium and high-risk areas have been quarantined in hotels, while others were told to refrain from going out.  As shopping malls and supermarkets in some areas were forced to close, buses and trains have also changed their routes to avoid passing through high-risk areas.  Despite these preventive measures, the city is not under a full lockdown and most people still need to go to work.   Guo Guanchu, a student of Southeast University, said people in the city did not find the current wave of infection frightening.  “The impact of the pandemic on Nanjing is decreasing, but it is having a bigger impact on the whole country,” he said, referring to the rising number of infections across the country.  But travel restrictions imposed to …

  With 33 people dead and eight still missing by Thursday evening, and more than 3 million people affected by the torrential rainfall in central China, officials in Henan Province are calling the severe flooding the worst in 5,000 years. At 11 a.m. today, Henan’s Meteorological Administration updated a red rainstorm alert in the province with a population of about 99 million. The meteorological service expected the accumulated rainfall since the beginning of the storms to rise to more than 100 millimeters in the coming three hours in the regions of Xinxiang, Anyang, Hebi and Jiaozuo. The heavy rains, which started last week, caused economic damage of more than 1.22 million yuan in Henan province and almost paralysed the capital city, Zhengzhou, as flooding affected transportation, water supplies and power on Tuesday. Yang Dingqi, a university student who was attending a  class one block away from the hotel where she lives in Zhengzhou, said she had to wade through calf-deep water back to the hotel on Tuesday afternoon. “I was very nervous at that time because there was no power, no water supplies, and all the goods in the supermarket were sold out,” Yang told TYR during a telephone interview today.   Some areas in Henan experienced heavy rains from Sunday morning to Wednesday afternoon. According to the official website of Henan’s department of water services, 845 millimeters of rain were recorded from 8 a.m. Sunday to 2 a.m. Wednesday at the Xingyang Huncuiyu measuring station. Officials with the water services department said it was a “once in 5,000 years” storm because the amount of rainfall was the highest ever recorded in the region. Zhao Xiaomu, who works in Zhengzhou, said she spent almost three hours walking in the water to go home on Tuesday. She said it usually only …