China said on Thursday it still has more than 18,000 people quarantined amid a spike in COVID-19 cases across the country.
The admission comes six months after the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus a global health emergency. Since then, the virus has spread and infected more than 17 million people worldwide, killing 667,808, a number that is increasing daily.
More than 66 percent of China’s quarantined residents are in the western Xinjiang province. Officials there have closed some residential areas, restricted public transportation, and ordered mass tests as authorities struggle to contain the crisis.
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The last time Beijing reported that more than 18,000 people had been in close contact with confirmed cases of coronavirus was April 3.
At the height of the pandemic, the number shot up to 189,000, according to the China National Health Commission.
On Wednesday, China reported 105 new cases of COVID-19.
But the upward trend is not occurring only in China.
Australia recorded more than 700 new infections and had its deadliest day on Thursday, with 13 deaths.
In the United States, there have been more than 4.4 million infections in total. The death count has reached 150,733, by far the highest in the world, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University.
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The grim milestone comes amid signs that the nation’s outbreak is beginning to stabilize in 15 southern states, but is increasing in the Midwest, sparked by young people who have been without masks and who are going to bars, restaurants and gyms.
