China has risked fanning a second wave of coronavirus cases. Even though domestic transmissions have been stopped, there is a worry of asymptomatic cases increasing.
To defend itself from a wave of new cases, China suspended entry on foreign nationals from Saturday onwards. In the last seven days, China reported 313 imported cases of the coronavirus, and, only six of the cases were from domestic transmission.
Saturday marked the fifth consecutive day that Hubei recorded no new cases.
Most of China’s imported cases are those of Chinese nationals returning home.
“The possibility of a new round of infections remains relatively big,” said Mi Feng, spokesman for the National Health Commission. A total of 81,470 are currently infected by COVID-19 in China. These include 3,300 deaths.
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China had been criticised by other nations for a delayed response with regards to the suspected cases.But the world's most populous country has since won praise from the World Health Organisation for its efforts to lock down affected areas and isolate patients.
On Saturday, Wuhan reopened after being in lockdown for two months. The city, which was the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, had shutdown in order to control the fast-spreading virus and was seemingly successful in doing so.
The Chinese government is desperately trying to revive an economy that was severely affected due to several curbs owing to the pandemic. Along with rolling out fiscal and monetary stimulus to spur recovery, the government is also pushing businesses and factories to reopen.
China’s import-exports sector and automobile industry have been among the worst hit during the crisis.
The imports-exports sector is expected to continue performing poorly with global spread of the virus affect demand internationally and on the home front. As for the automobile industry, the government plans to adopt new policies to stimulate demand.
