They’ve made it official. The strain of COVID circulating in Nanjing is indeed the Delta variant. The confirmation comes as case numbers continue to rise and the populace asks, “Just why on Earth are people still going to work?”.
Yesterday, 27 July, saw a further 47 new COVID cases confirmed in Nanjing, taking the total since 20 July to 153. Of these, 81 are described as mild and 68 as ordinary, while four severe cases are receiving treatment in an Intensive Care Unit.
At a press conference, Ding Jie, a deputy director in Nanjing’s Municipal Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, revealed that the Delta variant had been confirmed after completed gene sequencing, reports Nanjing Daily.
The confirmation comes as a slew of areas in Nanjing become categorised as medium-risk, all bar one in Jiangning District. Mostly, these are villages in remoter areas, but several are also residential communities in the urban part of Jiangning, while another is to be found in Gulou District.
All in all, with these additions, there are now 36 medium-risk areas and 4 high-risk areas in Nanjing.
Among the new positive cases is a taxi driver, surnamed Zhang, who lives in Gulou and works out of Lukou Airport.
While Zhang himself is being treated in Nanjing Public Health Centre, as of midnight last night, 343 people in 164 households in Zhang’s residential community had been intensively isolated.
Gulou has also strengthened its epidemic prevention and control management measures, which include 14 days of home monitoring for 1,657 airport-related personnel.
Today’s announcement of the latest cases in Nanjing brings the total in Jiangsu Province to 911, since 22 January.
But how long is this all going to last? An anonymous anti-epidemic expert who spoke to the Global Times said they believe we are looking at approximately 250 cases in total and an end to it all around mid August, the outlet reported last night.
It all means it now comes down to the nitty gritty; the stuff that, while necessary, is still frankly annoying.
While our gyms are closed and we should expect more social distancing to be in force in an increasing number of places, so too there are now once again those staggered meal times in workplace cafeterias and us all seated facing the same direction.
And among the other banes of our lives now being introduced is a recommendation that face masks are to be changed every 4 hours, not every 8. Just what our already-choking environment needs.
