• China locks down part of Guangzhou amid outbreak of Indian Covid variant | China | The Guardian
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/01/china-locks-down-part-of-guangzhou-amid-outbreak-of-indian-covid-varian
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8a050626bb7585182ee640916992aec78a39f489/0_400_6000_3600/master/6000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    China locks down part of Guangzhou amid outbreak of Indian Covid variant. Chinese authorities in Guangdong province have cancelled flights and locked down communities in response to what is believed to be the first community outbreak of the Indian variant in China. Guangdong province had been reporting daily single figures of local cases, including asymptomatic cases, for more than a week, until the case load suddenly jumped to 23 on Monday, including three asymptomatic cases, and 11 on Tuesday. Most of Guandong’s cases are in the city of Guangzhou, with some in nearby Foshan, which has a population of 7.2 million.
    Authorities said all cases were found to be the strain commonly known as the Indian variant of the virus, now renamed by the WHO as the “Delta” variant.“In this race against the virus, we must run a bit ahead and run faster than before in order to block the spread of the virus and cut off the infection chain in time,” said Huang Guanglie, director of the Guangzhou municipal health commission.Guangzhou deputy mayor, Li Ming, said the strain had a short incubation period, a high viral load, and spread quickly. However she said that the trajectory was “under control”.
    In response hundreds of flights at the busy Guangdong Baiyun international airport have been cancelled, and authorities ordered some streets in the Liwan neighbourhood of Guangzhou city to isolate at home, with only one person per household allowed out to buy daily necessities.On Sunday all 15.3 million Guangzhou residents were barred from leaving via bus, air or train without a green code on the health management app and a negative Covid test taken in the preceding 72 hours.Restaurants have shifted to takeaway only and entertainment venues closed, while senior high school classes have been moved online, and vaccinations have been temporarily suspended. Authorities also placed reduced limits on gatherings at public venues, and visiting rights to care and medical institutions.The outbreak also prompted a temporary suspension of imports at Yantian port in Shenzhen last week, one of the world’s busiest export hubs. On Friday authorities launched compulsory Covid-testing for all Yantian residents.
    After the Covid-19 pandemic began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, prompting a long and strict lockdown which would later be emulated around the world, authorities have largely contained the virus. Sporadic outbreaks of varying sizes have prompted localised lockdowns and transport suspensions, most recently in Anhui, which also prompted a huge increase in people seeking to get vaccinated

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#sante#variant#frontiere#circulation#deplacement#confinement#depistage#restrictionsanitaire#passeportsanitaire

  • Covid-19 variants to be given Greek alphabet names to avoid stigma | Coronavirus | The Guardian
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/01/covid-19-variants-to-be-given-greek-alphabet-names-to-avoid-stigma
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f17e5b4566e6392adf6eac428887e29970b7d6c6/128_73_1985_1191/master/1985.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    Covid-19 variants to be given Greek alphabet names to avoid stigma. WHO unveils new names for variants of concern to replace ones linked to where they were discovered. Coronavirus variants are to be named after letters of the Greek alphabet instead of their place of first discovery, the World Health Organization has announced, in a move to avoid stigma.The WHO has named four variants of concern, known to the public as the UK/Kent (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Brazil (P.1) and India (B.1.617.2) variants. They will now be given the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta respectively, to reflect their order of detection, with any new variants following the pattern down the Greek alphabet.
    The decision to go for this naming system came after months of deliberations with experts considering a range of other possibilities such as Greek Gods, according to bacteriologist Mark Pallen who was involved in the talks.The organisation said the labels do not replace existing scientific names involving numbers, Roman letters and full stops, which convey important scientific information and will continue to be used in research.
    The WHO said: “While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall and are prone to misreporting … As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatising and discriminatory.“To avoid this and to simplify public communications, [the] WHO encourages national authorities, media outlets and others to adopt these new labels.”Historically, diseases have frequently been named after the locations they were thought to have developed, such as the Ebola virus, which takes its name from the Congolese river. However, such associations can be damaging for those places and are often inaccurate, as is the case with the “Spanish flu” of 1918, whose origins are unknown.Earlier this month, the Indian government ordered social media platforms to take down content that referred to the “Indian variant”. The government order was cited as an example of its sensitivity to accusations that it had mishandled the latest outbreak.Anti-Asian hate crime has risen as a result of the pandemic and associations between Covid and the site of its first outbreak in Wuhan, China.
    US anti-extremist groups said a rise in attacks on Asian-Americans was partly down to Donald Trump, who referred to Covid-19 as the “China virus”.Trump’s successor as president, Joe Biden, signed a hate crimes law this month to protect those who have suffered a surge in attacks during the pandemic. With US anti-extremist groups saying that the rise in hate crimes was partly due to former president Donald Trump who referred to Covid-19 as the “China virus”.The WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said of adopting new variant names: “No country should be stigmatised for detecting and reporting variants.”

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#sante#OMS#variant#minorite#diaspora#discrimination