Half of EU vaccinated as Covid returns to China's Wuhan
3 آب 2021 18:59
Half of the European Union's population has now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, an AFP tally showed Tuesday, as China's Wuhan said it would test all 11 million residents after the virus returned to where it first emerged.
The highly contagious Delta variant has been driving surging infections across the world, even in places which had long touted their successes in overcoming the worst of the pandemic.
China brought domestic cases down to virtually zero after the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan in December 2019, allowing the economy to rebound and life to return largely to normal.
But a fresh outbreak has thrown that record into jeopardy, as the fast-spreading Delta variant reaches dozens of cities after infections among airport cleaners in Nanjing sparked a chain of cases that have been reported across the country.
After Wuhan reported its first local infections in more than a year, authorities said they were launching a mass-testing program for all 11 million residents.
Mao, a 27-year-old Wuhan resident, told AFP he was "not worried" about the new outbreak because "Wuhan has accumulated rich experience" after enduring a gruelling lockdown in the early months of the pandemic.
Across China, authorities have confined the residents of entire cities to their homes, cut domestic transport links and rolled out mass testing in recent days.
Hit hard by earlier waves of the pandemic, the European Union has now fully vaccinated more than 50 percent of its population.
Spain leads the pack of larger EU countries with 58.3 percent of its population fully vaccinated, followed by Italy with 54.4 percent, France with 52.9 and Germany with 52.2 percent, according to an AFP tally.
The highly contagious Delta variant has been driving surging infections across the world, even in places which had long touted their successes in overcoming the worst of the pandemic.
China brought domestic cases down to virtually zero after the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan in December 2019, allowing the economy to rebound and life to return largely to normal.
But a fresh outbreak has thrown that record into jeopardy, as the fast-spreading Delta variant reaches dozens of cities after infections among airport cleaners in Nanjing sparked a chain of cases that have been reported across the country.
After Wuhan reported its first local infections in more than a year, authorities said they were launching a mass-testing program for all 11 million residents.
Mao, a 27-year-old Wuhan resident, told AFP he was "not worried" about the new outbreak because "Wuhan has accumulated rich experience" after enduring a gruelling lockdown in the early months of the pandemic.
Across China, authorities have confined the residents of entire cities to their homes, cut domestic transport links and rolled out mass testing in recent days.
Hit hard by earlier waves of the pandemic, the European Union has now fully vaccinated more than 50 percent of its population.
Spain leads the pack of larger EU countries with 58.3 percent of its population fully vaccinated, followed by Italy with 54.4 percent, France with 52.9 and Germany with 52.2 percent, according to an AFP tally.