Two locally transmitted Covid-19 cases were reported in Shanghai, and one in Beijing, a passenger who arrived from Harbin. Elsewhere in China, there is still an outbreak in Inner Mongolia. Manzhouli, a border city in Inner Mongolia, has already reported more than 391 infections in the latest outbreak, caused by contaminated imported goods. Epidemiologists and insiders warned that loopholes in port management challenge China's dynamic zero-Covid policy. Local authorities are confident they will contain the outbreak within 14 days. Manzhouli suspended the import of non-container goods by rail, including wood, coal, mineral powder, chemical fertilizer, pulp, non-gold mined goods, agricultural and other goods that require manual loading and unloading. There is also a new outbreak in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province.
Mainland China has not yet reported any cases of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, but the spread of the variant across the world has increased pressure on China to prevent imported cases, Mi Feng, Spokesperson of the National Health Commission (NHC), said. However, nucleic acid tests used in China could cope with Omicron, said Xu Wenbo, Director of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention under the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC). He added that China has done preliminary research into different vaccines, including inactivated vaccines and recombinant protein vaccines, and some Chinese producers have started preliminary vaccine design. CanSino told the Global Times that the company has started working on vaccines against the new variant. Some Chinese bio-tech companies said their nucleic acid testing kits are upgraded and they are able to detect all prevailing variants, be it Delta, Gamma, Beta or Omicron. In theory, China's inactivated vaccines are better in dealing with virus variants compared with mRNA vaccines used in the West. Lu Hongzhou, Co-director of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center at Fudan University, told the Global Times that China's dynamic zero-Covid policy has proved the most successful with the smallest losses in the world. China has to stick to its strict policies and vaccination programs, especially when herd immunity has not yet been reached, he added. Meanwhile, China has developed enough testing capacity to detect the Omicron variant, Yang Peng, Director of the General Office of the Beijing Center for Global Health said. “We thought it was time for the world to reopen, but we are more concerned than ever with the emergence of the Omicron variant in countries which have not established a vaccine barrier,” Chinese Epidemiologist Zhang Wenhong said via video link at the 2021 Imperial Springs International Forum.
China's top respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan said: “We don't need to be afraid of Omicron if we apply the dynamic zero-case policy and strictly observe the set precise prevention and control measures.” Speaking at the 2nd Greater Bay Area (Shenzhen) Vaccine Summit, Zhong pointed out that there are two prerequisites to return to normalcy. First, the fatality rate should go down from the current 1% to 0.1%, which is basically the level of influenza. The second is if R0, the basic reproduction number, is reduced to between 1 and 1.5. To this end, the entire population in China must be vaccinated and herd immunity established, the mass prevention and control must be carried out, and an effective treatment should be developed, Zhong added.
The National Health Commission called for an intensified effort to ensure that elderly people in China receive Covid-19 vaccines and booster shots, as this group is much more vulnerable to the coronavirus. Zheng Zhongwei, head of China’s Covid-19 vaccine development task force, said the risk of severe illness among unvaccinated seniors is significantly higher than in younger persons. So far, about 50 million seniors in the country, accounting for 20% of the total number of people over 60, have yet to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. In some provinces, the vaccination rate of people aged 80 and above is less than 30%. Meanwhile, China will increase the frequency of Covid-19 testing by targeting incoming travelers from high-risk regions and stepping up monitoring of port workers and imported cargo, as part of measures to strengthen virus containment amid the emergence of the newly identified Omicron variant.
Spectators who enter the National Indoor Stadium in Beijing to watch the Winter Olympic Games must be fully vaccinated and will be required to present a negative nucleic acid test result obtained in the past 48 hours. During the Winter Olympics, all persons subject to closed-loop management, including athletes, media personnel and staff, will be tested daily and will be allowed to enter the venues only with negative results. Contact between those inside and outside the closed loop will be cut off. If items need to be transferred from outside the closed loop to the inside, an intelligent logistics storage cabinet will be used. The cabinet is one-way, and items cannot be passed from inside the closed loop to outside the closed loop. Athletes and staff cannot move between venues on their own, and must use exclusive shuffle buses to ensure zero contact with those outside the closed loop. The Beijing Winter Olympics will be held from February 4 to 20, 2022.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Global Times and Shanghai Daily.
