Prognosis
China Mahjong Dens Were Superspreader Sites, Spurring Crackdown
- 64-year-old woman transmitted virus in underground parlors
- Officials shut down elderly-frequented rooms across hotspots
Photographer: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
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A favorite pastime of elderly Asians has been implicated as a major driver of China’s current outbreak of delta virus cases, sparking the shutdown of tens of thousands of mahjong dens across the nation.
The so-called “chess and card rooms,” where hundreds of elderly gather in packed and poorly ventilated spaces primarily to play mahjong, were how a 64-year-old woman surnamed Mao spread the delta variant in the eastern city of Yangzhou, seeding the biggest single outbreak in China’s ongoing wave of infections.