COVID-19 cases in China have hit a daily record, prompting government officials to expand pandemic lockdowns days after authorities reported the country’s first coronavirus death in six months.
The number of new COVID-19 cases rose by 31,444 within the previous 24 hours — the highest daily figure since the first coronavirus detections in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the National Health Commission said Thursday.
Meanwhile, people in eight districts of Zhengzhou, a north-central Henan province city where factory workers recently clashed with police during a pay dispute, were instructed to stay home for five days beginning Thursday except to buy groceries or seek medical treatment. Daily mass testing was ordered for the city’s 6.6 million residents.
