Home case risks surge as winter comes
▶ ‘ Extreme caution’ needed on people, items at ports, hospitals
Many places in China are enhancing anti- epidemic measures and accelerating the rollout of COVID- 19 booster shots in face of increasing outbreak risk as winter sets in, bringing about a cold environment more suitable for virus survival and transmission.
But in general, it will be a stable winter for Chinese people with low probability of cluster outbreaks, experts said, while calling for extreme caution on personnel and items at ports and medical institutes.
A total of 19 confirmed imported COVID- 19 cases were reported on Saturday with another domestic case discovered in Xilin Gol League, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the National Health Commission ( NHC) revealed Sunday.
This makes the total number of existing confirmed cases in China 463 with one suspected case as of Saturday, according to the NHC.
Health authorities in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province also reported two novel coronavirus positive cases on Sunday.
The two people, a couple from Shanghai, left Shanghai on October 9 to travel to Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Shaanxi. The husband is surnamed Jiang, 65, and the wife is surnamed Yan, 62. They are both retired teachers from a Shanghai college. Shanghai health authority on Sunday also announced that they had launched an epidemiological investigation on the couple’s close contacts in Shanghai.
Gansu and Shaanxi health authorities said the couple visited the Danxia National Geological Park and the Pingshanhu Canyon in Zhangye, Gansu and Dayan Pagoda in Xi’an.
Facing reports of new cases across the country, Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert at Peking University First Hospital, warned that strict antiepidemic management should be maintained at ports, medical institutes and among transient population. Timely epidemiological investigation is also needed to prevent virus transmission, he noted.
Wang tried to ease public concerns by saying that, despite the low probability of clustered infections, in general, this winter will be stable for China as, on one hand, China has built a system to deal with outbreaks, and on the other hand, infection rates overseas are easing down thanks to growing vaccination rates.
Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Southwest China’s Yunnan Province have launched a booster shot campaign for CO
VID- 19 vaccines, as Xinjiang reported one local asymptomatic case in its capital Urumqi on Friday and Yunnan reported two asymptomatic cases in the border city Ruili the same day.
Urumqi started citywide nucleic acid testing immediately after the report of the one case and a second round is underway on Sunday, a resident surnamed Zhang told the Global Times on Sunday.
Wang also warned that attention should not only be given to people who are often contact high- risk personnel, but also high- risk items such as imported goods, parcels and garbage from international airlines, given previous experiences.