Guangzhou has also suspended individual COVID-19 vaccine appointments, with just three million out of the city's 15 million residents fully vaccinated so far, the city government said. Instead, key groups and frontline workers will be prioritized and mass testing ramped up through the region. Authorities also canceled hundreds of flights out of Baiyun International Airport from Monday afternoon after 18 people were found to be infected with the Indian variant of COVID-19, recently renamed the Delta variant by the World Health Organization (WHO). High schools have been closed to all but final-year students, with the rest told to take classes online from home.
A resident of Guangzhou's Liwan district surnamed Cai said the surge in cases comes after nearly 10 million people were vaccinated. "If Guangzhou residents want to leave town, they must have a PCR test within 72 hours of leaving," Cai said. "A lot of people are now doubting whether the vaccine has any protective effect at all."
