Tag: Wuhan

No evidence Covid created in Chinese lab: US intelligence

WASHINGTON, June 24, 2023 (AFP) – The head of US intelligence said Friday that there was no evidence that the Covid-19 virus was created in the Chinese government’s Wuhan research lab. In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with Covid-19 and may have created the virus themselves. Drawing […]

Hazmat suits and panic buying: pandemic images return to China

SHANGHAI, China (AFP) – A Shanghai pedestrian swarmed by hazmat-clad health officials, police tape wrapped around entire blocks, and panic buying at a Shenzhen shopping centre: China is returning to virus controls many hoped it had long left behind. The country is facing its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the first wave of the pandemic emerged in Wuhan in late 2019. While the daily caseload is comparatively small, around 5,300 were recorded on Tuesday, the Omicron […]

First Wuhan Covid case days later than initially reported: scientist

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The first case of Covid-19 identified in Wuhan, China and presented as such by the World Health Organization was actually days later than previously believed and at an animal market, a top scientist said in the journal Science Thursday. Rather than the original patient being a man who had never been to the Wuhan market where wild and domestic animals were sold, the first known case of Covid-19 turns out […]

Wuhan Marathon postponed as China battles Covid-19 spike

BEIJING, China (AFP) — The Wuhan Marathon, which had been due to take place Sunday, has been postponed at short notice as worries increase over a coronavirus resurgence in China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. China reported 26 new domestic Covid-19 cases on Sunday, in an outbreak that has become the latest test of the country’s zero-tolerance approach with just over 100 days until the start of the Games. Authorities have been racing […]

China’s Wuhan completes citywide Covid tests on 11 million residents

BEIJING, China (AFP) — Authorities in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Sunday said they had completed citywide testing of more than 11 million people for Covid-19 after a resurgence of cases more than a year after the coronavirus first emerged there. The tests — which began on Tuesday — provide “basically full coverage” of all residents in the city except for children under the age of six and students on their summer break, […]

Masks off, mortarboards on: Wuhan sheds Covid for mass graduation

BEIJING, China (AFP) — A huge red banner welcomed nearly 9,000 students in Wuhan for a massive graduation ceremony over a year after the city was battered by the first global outbreak of Covid-19. Students in navy gowns and mortarboards sat in crowded rows, without social distancing or face masks, beneath the sign that read: “Welcoming the graduates of 2020 back home. We wish you all a great future.” Covid-19 first emerged in late 2019 […]

China rejects claim of illness at Wuhan lab in late 2019

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China on Monday dismissed as “totally untrue” reports that three researchers in Wuhan went to hospital with an illness shortly before the coronavirus emerged in the city and spread around the globe. Since infecting its first victims in the central Chinese city in late 2019, the pathogen has afflicted almost every country in the world, killing more than 3.4 million people and pummelling national economies. Beijing has always fiercely fought the […]

WHO virus probe team visits China propaganda exhibit, hospital in Wuhan

  by Leo RAMIREZ / Hector RETAMAL Agence France Presse WUHAN, China (AFP) — A team of WHO experts investigating the origins of the coronavirus toured a propaganda exhibition celebrating China’s recovery from the pandemic in Wuhan on Saturday, after a meeting at the hospital that treated the first confirmed Covid-19 cases over a year ago. Details of the trip have been scant so far, with the media kept at arm’s length and information on […]

WHO virus probe begins with fieldwork in ground-zero Wuhan

  by Leo RAMIREZ / Hector RETAMAL Agence France Presse WUHAN, China (AFP) — Experts from the World Health Organization visited a Wuhan hospital Friday as the fieldwork began in a closely watched coronavirus origins probe that will take in a food market presumed to be “ground zero” of the pandemic. The WHO investigation has been hobbled by delays, and there are fears over access and the strength of evidence a year after the virus […]

Pride and caution in Wuhan on lockdown anniversary

  by Leo RAMIREZ / Sébastien RICCI Agence France Presse WUHAN, CHina (AFP) — Exactly one year after it thrust the word “lockdown” into the global conversation, Wuhan passed the anniversary with a mix of pride at emerging from Covid-19’s grip and caution over a possible relapse. A year ago Saturday, Wuhan shocked the world by confining its 11 million anxious citizens to their homes, beginning a traumatic 76-day lockdown that underscored the growing threat […]

WHO team arrives in Wuhan for virus investigation

  by Nicolas ASFOURI Agence France Presse WUHAN, China (AFP) — A team of experts from the World Health Organization arrived in Wuhan Thursday to probe the origins of the coronavirus more than a year after it emerged, although two members were barred from boarding a flight in Singapore after testing positive for virus antibodies. The international team of 13 scientists landed for their much-delayed mission, met by Chinese officials in hazmat suits and given […]

China places 5 million more under lockdown to stamp out virus cluster

BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese authorities sealed off a city of almost five million people and imposed strict travel restrictions on several others on Tuesday as they worked to quash a number of Covid-19 clusters near Beijing. The country had largely curbed the spread of the coronavirus, which first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, with small outbreaks swiftly snuffed out using mass testing, local lockdowns and travel restrictions. But Hebei province in northern China […]