COVID-19: China sees over 100 cases for 1st time in over 3 months amidst fear of second wave
Beijing: China's COVID-19 cases in a single day have crossed the 100-mark for the first time in over three months, sparking the fear of a rebound after Beijing contained it in Wuhan where the contagion first emerged in December last year.
The National Health Commission on Wednesday said that 101 new confirmed coronavirus cases including 98 locally-transmitted and three imported ones were reported in the country on Tuesday.
Eighty-nine of the 98 locally-transmitted cases were reported in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, eight in Liaoning province and one in Beijing Municipality, the commission said in its daily report.
No deaths related to the disease or new suspected COVID-19 cases were reported Tuesday.
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region reported 89 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the regional health commission said. The 89 patients were all in the regional capital Urumqi, 43 of whom were previously asymptomatic cases, according to the commission.
The region also saw 15 new asymptomatic cases in Urumqi. By Tuesday, Xinjiang, which is Uygur Muslim majority province, had 322 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 133 asymptomatic cases, and 9,121 people were still under medical observation.
Mass testing was being carried out in Urumqi to determine the extent of the spread of the virus.
After a COVID-19 cluster linked to a seafood processing company was found in Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning province last week, the city reported a total of 44 cases, state-run Global Times reported.
As of Tuesday, positive cases linked to Dalian have spread to nine cities, including one in Beijing, which is returning to normalcy after the Xinfadi wholesale market outbreak in June.
The patient in Beijing had dined with friends from Dalian, who were later confirmed to be infected with the virus in Jinzhou, Liaoning province.
The woman then drove a private vehicle to Beijing on July 19. Tiantongyuan community, where the patient lives, was sealed off on Tuesday.
Fuzhou, the capital of east China's Fujian province, announced it was entering a "wartime mode" after the discovery of an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient from Dalian.
Although China still faces the threat of new outbreaks due to local community transmissions or from imported cases, the country's capability to contain the COVID-19 has been honed, thanks to its experience in battling the virus for months, Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
He said that while more outbreaks are likely, they will not get out of control.
Zeng said that infection numbers in new virus clusters, such as Dalian and Urumqi, have been increasing quickly since July, and this curve echoes the trend in the world, where infections are also rising.
This proves that outbreaks in other countries continue to affect China as it gradually opens the borders, he said.
The NHC said as of Tuesday, the overall confirmed COVID-19 cases in Chinese mainland has reached 84,060, including 482 patients who were still being treated, with 25 in severe condition.
Altogether 78,944 people had been discharged after recovery and 4,634 died of the disease on the mainland, the commission added.
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Malian defence minister killed in attack that saw jihadis and rebels seize towns, military bases
Dakar (AP): Malian Minister of Defence Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases across the country, according to a military officer and two other sources on Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the Malian government.
“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Defence, Gen. Sadio Camara, has been killed during the attack which targeted his house yesterday,” said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the media.
Two other people, a civil society leader and a security member, confirmed the information.
Separatist fighters on Saturday joined Islamic militants in launching one of the biggest coordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital and several other cities that left at least 16 wounded.
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali, while al-Qaida and Islamic State group-aligned militants have been fighting the government for over a decade.
Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal after the attacks, the rebels said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a separatist group, said the Russian Africa Corps troops and the Malian military withdrew from the city after an agreement was reached for their peaceful exit.
“Kidal is declared free,” said FLA spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan.
The Malian army did not respond to requests for comment but in an earlier statement said they were “tracking down terrorist armed groups in Kidal.”
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali. Kidal had long served as a stronghold of the rebellion before being taken by Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023. Its capture marked a significant symbolic victory for the junta and its Russian allies.
It was the first time the separatists worked alongside the al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM, which also claimed responsibility for Saturday's attacks on Bamako's international airport and four other cities, including Kidal, in central and northern Mali.
“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” Ramadan said.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank, said that the coordination between the two groups, as well as the explicit call for the Russian military to leave, is new.
“The coordination, conducting attacks all over the country at the same time, real coordination on the military level but also on the political level because both claims of both groups they acknowledged that they worked together, this is a first,” said Nasr.
Mali government spokesperson Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said on state television late Saturday that 16 people were wounded, including civilians and military personnel, and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.
The governor of Bamako's district, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, announced a three-day overnight curfew, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Economic Community of West African States has condemned the attacks and called on “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and populations of West Africa to unite and mobilize in a coordinated effort to combat this scourge.”
The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”
Following military coups, the juntas in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso turned from Western allies to Russia for help in combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.
In 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed an attack on Bamako's airport and a military training camp in the capital, killing scores of people.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said that while the attacks were a major blow to the credibility of Mali's Russian partners, JNIM is unlikely to take control of Bamako in the near term due to opposition from the local population.
“The attacks are a major blow to Russia as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities. They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Laessing said.
