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Can’t impose a lockdown for every outbreak: resident
An employee from a supermarket near Yuquandong market in Beijing which reported a cluster of COVID-19 cases delivers and sells necessary goods to residents in a local locked-down community. Beijing raised its emergency response from Level III to Level II on Tuesday to further curb the viral spread.
Beijing has conducted nucleic acid tests on 356,000 people since Saturday, said a government official, noting that the city will round up key groups for testing, such as medical workers, those who live around residential compounds where confirmed infected people reside, and teachers and students who have already returned to school.
Nucleic acid test, no gatherings, social distancing… Beijingers swiftly raised their guard against the virus contagion after the municipal government raised Beijing’s COVID-19 response to Level II. After half a year’s virus battle, it seems the panic hovering over Beijing this spring won’t return. Instead, Beijingers are exploring ways to try to keep their lives undisturbed while carefully co-existing with the virus.
Zhang Qiang, an official of Beijing’s COVID-19 prevention team, said at a Wednesday press conference that six groups should be rounded up for testing, including medical workers, public service sector employees and teachers and students who have already returned to school, community-based frontline workers, alongside workers at the Xinfadi food wholesale market and other related markets as well as residents living in nearby communities.
Beijing is able to conduct nucleic tests for 400,000 people on a daily basis, said Zhang.
Beijing has disinfected 276 farm produce markets and closed 11 underground and semi-underground markets as of Tuesday morning, and 33,173 catering service providers have also been disinfected. The capital city was expected to complete its citywide sanitation of markets and restaurants by Tuesday midnight.
Under Level II, Beijing reinstated closed managements on communities, required people to have their temperatures taken, register with the entrance guards, and check health codes before entering the closed communities.
Mei An, who works at a bank in Beijing, said that she supports targeted measures. “We cannot just impose strict citywide lockdown measures every time an outbreak is reported.”
A Beijing resident surnamed Fan, who stayed in Wuhan since January and returned to the capital in April, told the Global Times that there’s a noticeable different between Beijing’s Level II response to Wuhan’s lockdown.
“Compared to the initial chaos in Wuhan, which was generated by ignorance of the virus, Beijing’s virus battle is more orderly. It only targets high-risk areas, and swiftly and effectively screens people related to those places,” Fan said, noting that he is confident in Beijing’s capability to bring the outbreak under control in a short time.
Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, dismissed such a suggestion, saying Beijing’s response measures are in line with the city’s situation. “China sealed off Wuhan because we had little understanding of the virus back then. And other infection cases were also found outside Huanan wet market. But Beijing is different, all infections detected so far in the new outbreak are related to the Xinfadi market,” Wang said.
He added “Beijing’s virus prevention results will be clearer 14 days later… if the situation improves after 28 days, the prevention measures will likely be relaxed.”