(Beijing) China launched a screening campaign in Xinjiang on Saturday after the discovery of a new source of coronavirus in this vast region in the northwest of the country where the Uyghur Muslim minority lives in particular, raising fears of a rebound contaminations.
Posted on 18 July 2020 at 9 a.m. 54
France Media Agency
These new cases illustrate the difficulty for China, the first country affected by the fine virus 2019, to eradicate the pandemic.
The screening campaign comes the day after the authorities decided to cut most air links to Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang, and to shut down the subway and public transportation services.
The city of 3.5 million inhabitants counted until Saturday 17 new cases of COVID – 19, according to the authorities.
The screening campaigns must begin in the buildings where the new cases have been reported, and will eventually cover the whole city, announced the head of the local health committee, Zhang Wei.
“The whole city has entered a 'state of war' and all group activities will be suspended,” an official said during the briefing, according to state media.
The inhabitants of Urumqi have been urged not to leave the city, except in cases of absolute necessity.
China, where the new coronavirus has been spotted late 2019, has largely contained the epidemic thanks to strict containment measures and mass screening campaigns.
But a new outbreak appeared in Beijing in June, infecting more than 330 people before it was contained.
Xinjiang was one of the first areas where students returned to school at the end of March, after authorities announced the end of the first wave of the pandemic.
Slightly less than half of the inhabitants of this immense semi-desert territory come from the Uighur minority, mainly Muslims and speaking a language related to Turkish.
Many of them say they are victims of political and religious repression imposed by the Communist Party in power for decades, which the central government denies.
