Beijing goes on high alert to curb COVID clusters; Shanghai reports 39 deaths in a day
Beijing(PTI): China's capital Beijing has gone on high alert as the situation turned grim following the emergence of clusters of COVID-19, while the country's financial hub Shanghai reported 39 more deaths due to the virus, the highest in a day so far during the current outbreak since last month.
The Chinese mainland on Saturday reported 21,796 cases, including 1,566 positive cases and the rest asymptomatic cases mostly in Shanghai, China's National Health Commission reported on Sunday.
Beijing, the seat of China's top leadership, went on high COVID-19 alert as the city braced to test some sections of the population after the city recorded 22 new community cases on Saturday.
The city went on high alert after 10 middle school students tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday following which city officials suspended classes in the school for a week.
Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said undetected local transmissions started in the city about a week ago, and involved schools, tour groups and families.
There were hidden transmissions for a week and the infected people came from different backgrounds and a wide range of activities, Pang was quoted as saying by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
Mass testing will be conducted on senior citizens who had been on tour groups, construction workers and the people working at the school where the cluster was identified, Pang said.
On Friday, Beijing Communist Party boss Cai Qi, mayor Chen Jining and other city leaders met twice to organise control efforts.
The meeting pointed out that our city [Beijing] had suddenly recorded some cases and many transmission chains were involved. The risk of further hidden transmission is high. The situation is urgent and grim, state-run Beijing Daily reported.
Shanghai continued to be the epicentre of the Omicron variant of the virus.
Apart from Shanghai, 16 other provincial-level regions on the mainland saw new local COVID-19 cases, including 60 in Jilin, 26 in Heilongjiang, and 22 in Beijing, the report said.
Also, 29,531 people were undergoing treatment for the coronavirus across the country, the report said.
On Saturday, Shanghai reported 23,370 new cases, taking the city's total to about 466,000 since March 1.
The city of 26 million people on Saturday reported 39 deaths from COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 87 so far in the city since it went into lockdown at the end of last month following the emergence of the Omicron virus.
With this, China's overall death toll due to coronavirus, ever since it first emerged in Wuhan in 2019 December, rose to 4,725.
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14 India-bound ships in Strait of Hormuz stopped by Iran; 1 hit by bullets, 1 crosses: Sources
New Delhi (PTI): A convoy of 14 India-bound ships carrying crude oil and gas were stopped by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by firing at two of them while they were transiting the Strait of Hormuz, leading to 13 of the vessels returning to different locations in the Persian Gulf, official sources privy to the development said.
An Indian-flag carrying ship, which was hit by bullets fired by the IRGC while crossing the Strait of Hormuz, was carrying crude oil and a window pane was broken, forcing it to stop the journey and return. The extent of damage to the second vessel was not immediately known but it also had returned.
However, another ship, which was Indian flagged and loaded with crude oil for the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, sailed through the Strait and is now heading towards India, the sources said.
Two Iranian gunboats approached the targeted tanker and fired at it without warning. Gunboats approached the vessel 37 kilometres northeast of Oman, causing other vessels to return without completing the crossing, the sources said.
The incident was reported in waters between the Qeshm and Larak islands, they said.
Out of the 14 India-bound vessels, seven are carrying the Indian flag, four have the Liberia flag, two are of the Marshall Islands and one of Vietnam.
Six of them are loaded with crude oil, three have LPG and four are loaded with fertilisers. Among the ships, five are bulk carriers. All 14 vessels were sailing in a row.
Thirteen of them were stopped by the Iranian Navy and were instructed to wait. Out of the 13 stranded vessels, seven vessels are drifting south of Larak Island, waiting for clearance from the Iranian Navy, the sources said.
The Indian government is understood to have been coordinating with the Iranian authorities for the safe voyage of the stranded India-bound ships, they said.
The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz reportedly escalated again on Saturday as Iran reversed its reopening of the crucial waterway and fired on ships attempting to pass. This came as the United States pressed ahead with its blockade of Iranian ports.
Confusion over the Strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil passes, threatened to deepen the energy crisis.
The ceasefire between Iran and the US is due to run out by mid-next week.
Iran's joint military command said Saturday that "control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state ... under strict management and control of the armed forces."
It warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the US blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
