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China’s ambitious drive to eradicate COVID-19 while the
world is living in the shadow of the Omicron variant seems to be stuck with
cases of local transmission getting reported daily.
The Asian giant has launched a zero-COVID-19"
campaign but it has not stopped cases of local transmission, which is
worrying. Local instances of spurt in numbers, though for a short period, has
been continuing since October 17 when the campaign was launched.
Quarantine net expanded
Even though the numbers are nowhere near the caseload of the
United States and Europe, China has reason to worry as have not eradicated local transmission, a
BBC report says.
In a push to root out coronavirus, the authorities have gone
for even more stringent measures with its zero-COVID-19 push. The quarantine
net has been expanded beyond the patients and primary contacts to secondary contacts
and even to those who may have happened to be in the same place as the patient
at the same time, reports say.
A few cases prompted the authorities to lock down an entire
area recently, trapping about 10,000 tourists in Inner Mongolia for more than a
week. A single patient’s travel history of having visited Shanghai Disneyland caused
its shutdown. When some high-speed train crew members figured on the contact
history to a confirmed case, the service was suspended mid-way leaving thousands
stranded. Tragically, in some cases, local COVID-prevention workers killed pets
in the houses of patients.
Although such steps helped whittle down the cases to zero in
affected localities, new infections have been appearing in apparently unrelated
places.
Fuming discontent
Inner Mangolia’s Manzhouli town, an entry point for travelers
from Russia, recently reported about 300 cases. Its 150,000 residents are now
facing a ninth round of mass testing amid a total lockdown. The"
bureaucracy is also not spared in the crackdown. Many officials found to be
“slow or weak” have received the rap across the Mainland. Two officials of
Manzhouli were penalized for slow or inefficient responses.
There is some discontent in local communities towards the heavy-handed
approach although it is likely to remain localized.
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Almost all major cities have reported new cases in the past
week including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Hebei, the province where Wuhan,
where the very first cases of SARS-CoV-2 originally appeared in 2019 is
located, also reported news cases.
The bulwark of China’s strategy against COVID-19 is the zero-case
push while most other are learning to live with the new coronavirus. The
arrival of the Omicron variant, however, is forcing some countries to rethink
their strategy.
University study
A Peking University study suggests that the country could
face over 630,000 COVID-19 infections a day if the zero-tolerance policies changed.
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So, what are the prerequisites for lifting the
zero-tolerance approach? Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory disease expert and
government advisor, said the fatality rate of should drop to around 0.1%, and the
basic reproduction number of COVID-19 should drop below 1.5. The reproduction
number is the factor by which one patient infects others in a susceptible
population.