Airlines pull out of Nanjing airport amid surge in infections

Airlines have cancelled flights in and out of the Chinese city of Nanjing, the epicentre of a fast-growing coronavirus cluster which has spread to capital Beijing and five other provinces. Checks on Nanjing Lukou international airport’s website showed no flights in and out of the city on 29 and 30 July. Typically, more than 300 passenger and cargo flights — most of them domestic — fly in and out of the airport, according to flight tracking data. The source of the latest wave of infections — dubbed “the most extensive domestic contagion after Wuhan” by state media Global Times — is believed to have been airport staff who were “inadequately protected” while cleaning aircraft operating international flights. Wuhan is where Covid-19 was first detected. The city was placed under strict lockdown in early 2020, but has since reopened. On 29 July, China reported 49 new coronavirus infections, the bulk of them from Jiangsu province, of which Nanjing is the provincial capital. A day earlier, the country saw 86 cases. <br/>