China is scrambling to address its most severe domestic Covid-19 outbreak in nearly two years, reporting soaring cases in a fresh wave that has seen the country tweak its zero-Covid policy by allowing rapid antigen tests (RATs) for public use.
After topping 1,000 for two days in a row, locally transmitted cases surged to more than 3,100 on Saturday, this time driven by a spike in symptomatic infections.
Local symptomatic cases also went up by more than three times to 1,807, from 476 a day earlier, according to data released by the National Health Commission on Sunday.
Asymptomatic infections edged up to 1,315, from 1,048 the previous day, after dominating the national caseload for the past few days.
Some local health authorities had attributed this trend to the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible but causes less severe symptoms than the original Covid-19 virus. China does not classify asymptomatic infections as confirmed cases.
Most of the new local cases came from the northeastern province of Jilin , which logged 2,156 infections, of which 1,412 were symptomatic.
Zhang Yan, a public health official in charge of provincial pandemic control, said the cities of Jilin and Changchun at the centre of the outbreak had launched their latest round of mass testing to screen transmission clusters.
[[nid:569956]]National health authorities approved Covid-19 rapid antigen tests for public use on Friday after Premier Li Keqiang said the country’s zero-Covid responses would be fine-tuned to avoid disruptions to the economy.
Zhang said Jilin province would promote RATs and raise the capacity for nucleic acid testing in efforts to cut transmission chains.
A makeshift 1,500-bed hospital is also expected to be put into operation in Changchun.
On the east coast, the financial hub of Shanghai and port city of Qingdao in Shandong province are also battling serious local outbreaks. Residents in both cities have been urged to cancel all unnecessary travel, and all inbound and outbound travellers are required to to present negative nucleic acid test results taken within 48 hours.
In the capital Beijing, incoming travellers must not take part in group meals or other gatherings for the first seven days after entering the city.
Vice-premier Sun Chunlan, who is leading the nation’s anti-pandemic work, called outbreaks “complicated and severe”, as she urged health authorities to control cluster transmissions.
“In order to address the Omicron spreads, we should promote a model of antigen screening and nucleic acid tests, allow the public to purchase tests by themselves, which is conductive to early detection,” Sun told a televised pandemic control meeting on Saturday.
Huang Shouying, deputy head of public security in the southern province of Guangdong, was dismissed along with five officials in Dongguan for the mishandling of an outbreak in the industrial city that began on March 1, according to the Nanfang Daily , a newspaper backed by the provincial government.
This came as Guangdong logged a total of 256 new cases, 62 of which were symptomatic and nearly all reported in Shenzhen. Asymptomatic local cases dominated in Dongguan, which reported 188 such infections.
This article was first published in South China Morning Post.
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