Caution of corona still urged
▶ Secondary wave of COVID-19 remains possible
After being home-quarantined for nearly a month, some Chinese people, encouraged by glimmering signs of the relieved spread of COVID-19, began to relax their vigilance and hurried to treat themselves in shopping malls and restaurants. However, authorities and observers urged it is yet too early to resume the pre-outbreak life, as any relaxation would give rise to increased contagion and roll back the whole country’s previous hardearned achievements in containing the spread of the virus.
China’s health commission confirmed 648 new infections with only 18 were outside of Hubei Province. A total of 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions haven’t recorded a single case of a new infection on Saturday.
After positive signs of controlling the virus emerge, some places began to loosen previous “strictest-ever” control measures, and opened some places to the public, such as restaurants and shopping malls.
A Beijing resident, surnamed Mu, went to a small park near his home over the weekend. “My family drew lots to decide who will walk the dog in the residential compound, which has been a rare chance to breathe the fresh air in the past weeks. This weekend we finally decided to hang out in a nearby park, like a prisoner freed from jail,” Mu said, noting the dog Yuanbao was even happier.
But observers warned that the infection has not tapered yet, and we haven’t formed a complete understanding of the virus, so any relaxation at this stage is quite dangerous, and would cause a secondary wave of infections.
Many local governments again took complimentary measures over the once-relaxed control measures.
Nine officials in Guangyuan, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province were punished for failing to correctly evaluate the transmission risk and take precautions after media reported that a large number of people gathered outside a city square to drink tea and chat, media reported on Sunday.
US supermarket giant COSTCO moved to restrict daily flow of shoppers to 2,000 people at its Shanghai outlet and required consumers to wear face masks all the time within the supermarket, according to a COSTCO notice on Sunday.
The new measure came after the supermarket received an oral warning from Shanghai’s Minhang district government after large crowds of shoppers were found gathering at the store on Saturday.
It is fine to cautiously ease control measures if the tightest measures continue, but the economic and social costs would be tremendous. It is not time to remove the alert, said Zhou Zijun, a professor at Peking University’s School of Public Health, noting malls must take methods to restrict crowds and people should not hang out without masks.
Experts also underlined that there is still risk of cluster infections as more companies and business resume operations.
Companies had better stop using central air-conditioning and be careful in canteen services. Employers should not ask all staff to return to office, Zhou said.