BEIJING: A Covid-hit Chinese city is offering thousands of dollars for anyone giving clues in tracing the source of its latest outbreak, as part of a “people’s war” to stamp out one of the country’s largest resurgences in months.

China reported 43 local cases on Tuesday in a Delta-driven surge that has fanned out to 20 provinces and regions, keeping new case numbers in the double-digits over the past three weeks.

As more countries lift Covid measures, Beijing officials have stuck stubbornly to a zero-Covid strategy that has maintained low infection numbers due to strict border closures, targeted lockdowns and long quarantines.

But the current outbreak has hit more than 40 cities, and officials in Heihe — a northern city on the border with Russia — said they would offer 100,000 yuan ($15,500) as a reward for information.

“In order to uncover the source of this virus outbreak as soon as possible and find out the chain of transmission, it is necessary to wage a people’s war of epidemic prevention and control,” the city government said in a notice.—AFP