With the upcoming New Year and Chinese Spring Festival holidays, China will take targeted measures to limit the spread of Covid-19, rather than one uniform policy for the whole country. Liang Wannian, head of the Covid-19 response expert panel of China's National Health Commission (NHC), advised medium- and high-risk areas, ports and border cities, and cities that will host major public activities – including the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing – to take strict epidemic prevention and control measures. Other regions should adopt flexible and effective policies based on local conditions rather than adopt a “one-size-fits-all” approach, he stressed. Beijing health authorities are encouraging the city's residents to stay in Beijing unless travel is necessary, but those who wish to leave the city can do so. Many provinces, including Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Jiangxi, and Henan have issued regulations for inbound travelers from low-risk areas to only provide negative nucleic acid test results and green health codes, removing requirements for mandatory quarantines.
So far, four imported Omicron cases have been detected in mainland China, the first one in Tianjin, the second in Guangzhou, and two in Changsha, all in returning Chinese travelers. The Guangzhou patient had completed his quarantine in Shanghai and tested negative several times, before testing positive during home quarantine in Guangzhou. A few local cases linked to the imported case have also been reported. Both major Chinese vaccine producers Sinopharm and Sinovac are studying the Omicron variant to determine if a new vaccine is needed. A third producer, CanSinoBIO, said its Covid-19 vaccine can provide a decent level of protection against Omicron. The levels of neutralizing antibodies against Omicron after a booster are 10 times higher than those when taking three doses of an inactivated vaccine, CanSinoBIO stressed. The company is developing a new vaccine targeting the Omicron variant.
The latest study shows a third shot of Chinese biotech firm Sinovac's inactivated vaccine can more than double the antibodies against the Omicron variant. The study was conducted by the company on 20 people who received two shots and another 48 who received three shots. Seven in the first group and 45 in the second tested positive against the Omicron variant. Sinovac said that the data demonstrated that a booster shot can effectively enhance the vaccine's neutralizing capacity.
Current Covid-19 outbreaks in China are concentrated in Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang. More than 425 cases were reported in the recent outbreak in Zhejiang province, with Shaoxing the hardest hit. Authorities in Ningbo, a port city in Zhejiang, are encouraging migrant workers to stay in the city during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday from January 31 to February 6. Companies are encouraged to seize the opportunity to increase output. One Covid-19 case has been reported in Beijing, linked to one in Xian.
Some producers of cobalt, a key component in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), in Zhejiang province have suspended work due to recent Covid-19 flare-ups, pushing up the already high prices of the raw material in China. Two cobalt salt plants in Zhejiang halted production on December 10. Their combined output of cobalt sulfate was about 700 tons in November, accounting for about 12% of the total supply of cobalt sulfate in China that month, while their combined output of cobalt chloride reached 600 tons, accounting for 14% of total supply. Prices of cobalt have been on the rise since December 10, increasing by CNY16,000 per ton. The price of domestic electrolytic cobalt was CNY482,500 per ton on December 15, an increase of 76% from the beginning of the year.
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy will be considered to treat patients with the Omicron strain, experts with the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine said. TCM has proven effective in treating Covid-19 patients through reducing symptoms and boosting their immune systems. A treatment plan will soon be released, Zhang Zhongde, Vice President of the Guangdong Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said at a press conference. Zhang Boli, Dean of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said in March that no matter how the virus mutates, the effectiveness of TCM won't be affected. The principle of TCM treatment is not aimed at the virus itself. Instead, it works to improve the human immune system, so that the strong resistance and immunity of the patient can defeat the virus, Zhang Boli explained.
Meanwhile, Xian in Shaanxi province has recorded cases of hemorrhagic fever, which is caused by the hantavirus. Medical experts said that rodents are the main source of infection, but vaccinations can effectively prevent and control the disease, while human-to-human transmission is basically impossible. The disease can be transmitted by a mouse bite, by eating food or water that a mouse has crawled over, or by contact with infected mouse blood, urine or feces. The number of epidemic hemorrhagic fever cases in China from January to August in 2020 was 4,359, and the death toll was 21.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Global Times and Shanghai Daily.
