[China largely brought the outbreak under control by the middle of this year after authorities locked down cities, closed borders and enforced strict quarantine and testing requirements. While China has been able to reopen the economy and regain some sense of normalcy, new outbreaks have caused various parts of the country to go into periodic lockdowns.]
That China, one of few countries to
have contained the virus, continues to grapple with outbreaks highlights
the difficulty others face in bringing the
pandemic under control.
For the past seven days, China
reported new locally transmitted cases in clusters scattered across the country
from Beijing to Liaoning province in the north and Sichuan in the southwest.
Health officials on Tuesday documented 15 new local infections in Beijing and
Liaoning, about half of them in a suburb of the capital.
In Hangzhou in the east, a security
guard was confirmed to have the virus, while in Heihe, near China’s border with
Russia, all flights were canceled after a student and his grandmother tested
positive. As of Tuesday, 23 neighborhoods and districts were in what
authorities described as “wartime”
mode after the discovery of new cases.
China largely brought the outbreak
under control by the middle of this year after authorities locked down cities,
closed borders and enforced strict quarantine and testing requirements. While
China has been able to reopen the economy and regain some sense
of normalcy, new outbreaks have caused various parts of the country to go into
periodic lockdowns.
[China
beat back covid-19 in 2020. Then it really flexed its muscles at home and
abroad.]
Data released by China’s public
health authorities late Monday showed that the scale of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, where the virus was
first detected last year, may have been 10 times the official figure.
A survey in April of some 34,000
people found that 4.4 percent of those tested in Wuhan had antibodies for
fighting off the virus. That would suggest as many as 500,000 residents in
Wuhan had the virus, compared with the official tally of 50,000. The data also
indicates that the city first hit by the virus is far from achieving herd
immunity.
“This means that there were many latent
infections that had not been discovered during the Wuhan epidemic,” Tao Lina, a
Shanghai-based expert on vaccines and immunology, told state media.
Authorities, on high alert ahead of
the Lunar New Year — a holiday also known as the Spring Festival — issued new
restrictions on movement and gatherings. Last year, the holiday period, during
which citizens make an estimated 3 billion trips across the country, was
interrupted by the outbreak.
This time, residents may still be
restricted from celebrating. The northwestern city of Lanzhou called on families
to visit relatives, a new year tradition, online rather than in person. Several
cities restricted the size of gatherings to 10 people, while in Anhui province,
any company gathering of more than 50 guests must be registered with the
government.
In the northeastern port city of
Dalian, where authorities have been scrambling to control an outbreak,
government and state company workers must apply for permission to attend any
events with guests from other Chinese provinces or other countries.
[China
sentences citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for Wuhan
lockdown reports]
And in Shenyang, the capital of
Liaoning province, elementary schools have been asked to hold their winter
breaks earlier, while some colleges are extending their semesters and requiring
students to be tested for the coronavirus before being allowed to return home.
Measures were strictest in Beijing,
where officials have tested more than 1.2 million people in the suburb of
Shunyi since last week after two new coronavirus cases were detected on Friday.
The area was placed under “wartime” controls over the weekend.
Beijing residents have been
encouraged to celebrate the holiday in the capital, while party officials have
been ordered not to leave, unless given permission. Fairs, sports events and
travel groups have been suspended.
While warning the public against
travel during the holiday, authorities have tried to maintain confidence in the
government’s virus response, promising increased availability of vaccines and
pointing to imported cases as the main threat. Fuyang city in Anhui province
advised residents against shopping online from overseas stores.
“Although the emergence of sporadic
cases cannot be avoided, large-scale transmission is basically not possible.
Yet, in some places prevention and control may increase,” Zhang Wenhong,
director of the infectious-diseases department at Huashan Hospital in Shanghai,
told local media on Monday. “The more cases there are, the greater difficulty.”
Lyric Li in Beijing contributed to
this report.
Read more
China
beat back covid-19 in 2020. Then it really flexed its muscles at home and
abroad.
China
sentences citizen journalist Zhang Zhan to four years in prison for Wuhan
lockdown reports
China
pulls ahead among major economies in pandemic recovery
