A further 71 locally transmitted cases were confirmed on Tuesday, the national health commission said on Wednesday – the highest daily count since January. Nearly half were in Jiangsu, the site of the airport cluster to which most cases have been linked, and 15 in Hunan. On Wednesday afternoon China announced it would tighten cross-border movement, and temporarily suspend issuing entry and exit documents for non-essential, non-emergency travel, state media reported.
The governments of all 31 provinces have advised residents to avoid leaving their regions unless necessary, and to stay away from the four high-risk – and more than 120 medium-risk – regions across China, in an attempt to curb further transmission of the highly infectious Delta variant.
