Published: 13.03.2022 – 12:13
On Sunday, millions of people were locked down across China as the country recorded its highest rate of daily coronavirus cases in two years as public concern over the government’s zero-Covid policy stubbornness grew more and more.
Chinese health authorities identified nearly 3,400 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday, March 13, a record number since the epidemic began in February 2020, and rushed to stem the outbreaks by isolating the affected areas.
Due to this spike in cases across the country, authorities have closed schools in Shanghai, placed central areas in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen on lockdown, as well as entire cities in the northeast, while nearly 19 provinces are struggling with… local outbreaks due to Delta. and variants of Omicron.
Jilin, a major city in the northeast, has been partially closed, with hundreds of neighborhoods under a hood, an official said Sunday. Yanji, a city of 700,000 on the border with North Korea, is completely isolated.
Tough policy undermined
China, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, has applied a zero-tolerance policy to the outbreak. It responds to epidemic outbreaks with local restrictions, mass screening, and control of its population with tracking apps. The country’s borders remain virtually closed.
But this record of daily cases caused by the Omicron variant undermines this approach. “The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not reliable enough, the understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant is insufficient (…) and the decision was inaccurate,” Zhang Yan, a Jilin provincial health official, admitted at a government press briefing.
“It also reflects the rapid growth (…) of the virus in various regions and the lack of (…) medical resources”, leading to delays in hospitalization and treatment of patients, he said.
Residents of Jilin, where more than 500 Omicron cases have been reported, had completed six rounds of mandatory drug tests by Sunday, according to local authorities. On Saturday, several hundred blocks of the city were cordoned off. Changchun, a nearby city and industrial base of 9 million people, was closed on Friday.
State media reported that the mayor of Jilin and the health official of Changchun were removed from their posts on Saturday in a political imperative placed on local authorities to deal with the outbreak. So far, China has managed to keep coronavirus cases at a very low level thanks to localized lockdowns, mass testing and border closures.
But fatigue from such a strict approach is increasingly heard in China. Several officials are now advocating softer, targeted measures to contain the spread of the virus, with economists warning that drastic measures are hurting the country’s economy.
In Shenzhen, a city of about 13 million people bordering Hong Kong, residents have expressed concern over a spike in cases and a harsh response from health authorities, who have shut down the Futian area (300,000 residents).
Hong Kong has been especially hard hit
Hong Kong now has one of the highest death rates from the virus in the world: Omicron is hitting an elderly population that still doesn’t want to be vaccinated. Thousands of expatriates have also fled the city, largely due to school closures and severe restrictions that have virtually eliminated any gathering or movement.
But Chinese health policy has generally been more targeted since the surge in cases that began in February than in December, when the city of Xi’an and its 13 million people went into complete lockdown for two weeks.
In China’s largest city, Shanghai, authorities have decided to rely on social distancing by temporarily closing schools, businesses, restaurants and malls rather than enforcing mass quarantines.
Faced with a rise in cases, the national health authority announced on Friday that it would introduce the use of rapid antigen tests, which could indicate an easing of the Communist Party’s health policy.
With AFP