Under lockdown
Police officers in protective gear guard the entrance to the railway station in Jilin city, Jilin province, on Wednesday. Officials have prohibited people from boarding trains in the city as a result of new COVID-19 cases.
The Jilin city government announced on Wednesday it would expand its lockdown measures to cover the entire city — restricting movement, halting most transportation and suspending public events, in order to contain a fresh cluster of COVID-19 infections that climbed to 21 cases by Wednesday morning.
Researchers dispatched by the National Health Commission and regional authorities are racing to identify the source of the infections. Genome sequencing on the earliest 15 cases since May 7 — when the first case was detected — is also underway to help unravel the chain of transmission, the local government said.
The city, in Jilin province, reported six new locally transmitted cases on Tuesday. It also added one asymptomatic infection and one suspected case on the same day.
Fourteen of the cumulative domestic confirmed cases were found in Shulan, a city under Jilin city’s jurisdiction that is categorized as a highrisk area. The remaining seven cases were detected in Jilin city’s Fengman district, now at the medium-risk level.
All infected patients are receiving treatment at hospitals and are in stable condition, officials said. A total of 367 people who had close contacts with the patients were tracked down and placed under medical observation by Tuesday.
Although most of Jilin’s urban area have seen no new infections, Vice-mayor Gai Dongping said the government has decided to step up its quarantine measures across the city in alignment with epidemic control requirements imposed on high-risk areas.
“The current epidemic situation in Jilin is very grim and complicated, and there is a dire risk of the virus spreading farther. Thus the most rigorous action must be taken to halt the virus’ spread,” she said at a news conference.
Under the upgraded control measures, all residential compounds and villages are locked down, prohibiting unauthorized entrance or exit. Passenger buses and chartered tour buses are suspended while freight vehicles will operate normally.
At 6 am on Wednesday, the city stopped allowing passengers to leave by train. The ticket hall of the station stood empty Wednesday morning as police officers were seen guarding the gate in hazmat suits.
According to Gai, people who intend to leave the city must show results of nucleic acid tests taken within 48 hours of departure and attest to their health status.
Pharmacies and clinics have stopped selling fever medications, antiviral drugs and antibiotics, and all people with a fever are now sent to designated hospitals for diagnosis.
Since May 7, when the first new case was detected, 2,389 residents of Jilin have been given nucleic acid tests as part of an ongoing screening program. “Close contacts of confirmed cases as well as people who came into contact with close contacts will all be placed under centralized quarantine,” Gai said.
Also on Wednesday, Jilin’s education authority said all grades, including high school seniors who planned to go back to school on campus this week, should resume online classes.
The National Health Commission has sent three groups to the city, one for each of the three areas — virus control work, epidemiological studies and medical treatment.
Gai said experts are digging into the source of the clustered infections, tracing clues from previous domestic cases as well as imported cases.
She added that a mobile P3-level laboratory allocated to Jilin is about to be put into use to facilitate sequencing the genes of recent infections. P3 is the second-highest level of lab security.
Wu Zunyou, a chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Tuesday
that more investigation is needed to determine whether the first patient identified on May 7 was the source. “It is also urgent to compare the genome sequencing of these domestic cases to that of patients who have come from Russia to see if they are linked,” he told China Central Television.
He Qinghua, an official in the National Health Commission’s disease prevention and control bureau, said regional clusters show that regular epidemic prevention and control procedures should not be relaxed.
“The overall epidemic situation in China is stable, controllable and trending better,” he said. “But the resumption of work, imported infections and many unknowns surrounding the virus will continue to bring new challenges.”