‘They will have to take the plunge’: Delta variant underscores limitations of China’s Covid-zero strategy

The rise of domestic coronavirus cases has renewed the debate about whether the new Chinese action plan will be sufficient to deal with its biggest outbreak since Wuhan, writes William Yang

China is trying to figure out a long-term strategy to contain the pandemic (Getty Images)

As the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the world, China is struggling to contain its latest domestic outbreak caused by the same variant. The number of Covid-19 cases reached a seven-month high on Tuesday, as the country reported 143 new cases.

Of the 143 new cases, 108 are domestically transmitted, including dozens of cases in Yangzhou City in the eastern province of Jiangsu, the epicentre of the latest domestic outbreak. Chinese state media characterised the current outbreak as the most serious since the pandemic first broke out in Wuhan last year.

The new outbreak began at the Nanjing airport in Jiangsu, where several airport cleaners were infected, and it soon spread to more than a dozen provinces across China. The spread has caused dozens of local authority workers to lose their jobs while state media tries to shore up confidence in the government’s ability to contain the latest outbreak.