Beijing fights infection cluster in ‘wartime mode’
▶ Unknown origin, route add to risk of further spread
All communities in Beijing entered the “wartime management mode” on Monday as the capital city undertakes strict prevention and control measures following the latest outbreak of a COVID-19 cluster that was first detected at a local seafood market in the city’s Fengtai district.
Facing growing uncertainties, central and local-level officials urged the public to remain on high alert due to the long duration and complexity of the situation, considering the virus’ mutation, unclear origin of the infection cluster and unknown transmission routes.
After having reported zero new cases of coronavirus infections for 56 consecutive days,
Beijing reported 79 cases related to Xinfadi – a large wholesale food market in Fengtai district – between Thursday and Sunday, including one critically ill patient and two severely ill, the official data showed.
As of Monday, some 7,200 residential communities, including villages, have all entered “wartime mode” with nearly 100,000 epidemic control staff deployed to help prevent the virus from further spreading throughout the capital.
Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who has fought the epidemic for months at the frontline in Wuhan, the hardest-hit city in Central China’s Hubei Province, said on Sunday that the risk of the Bei
jing epidemic spreading is very high as the Xinfadi market is densely populated and highly mobile, leading to hugely potential risks of a further spread in Beijing.
Local officials were urged to take resolute and decisive measures to effectively prevent the spread of the epidemic. Meanwhile, Xinfadi and surrounding areas should be made a priority in conducting epidemiological investigations and carrying out in-depth and comprehensive source tracing, the vice premier said.
‘Wartime’ measures
Among 36 newly reported cases on Sunday, 34 were related to Xinfadi market while the other two were still under epidemiological investigation, according to Beijing’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday.
Five of the confirmed patients are from Fengtai’s Huaxiang neighborhood, rendering it a “high-risk” area, which is also the only one in the country.
Shanghai-based infectious disease expert Zhang Wenhong said in a post shared on social media on Sunday that the bad news is the market has a huge turnover volume, and it’s still unknown if there will be more outbreaks later.
The Global Times talked to a dozen Beijing residents from different districts, including Haidian, Chaoyang and Fengtai, and a large majority of them believe that the Wuhan scenario won’t repeat in Beijing, referring to a 76-day unprecedented lockdown of the city, an important transportation and manufacturing hub.
“Looking at epidemic-related news alerts showing up one by one on my phone, my mood for the past two days has been quite poor. It seems like I just walked out from the shadow into the bright day, but returned to the shadow again overnight,” a Beijing local resident surnamed Huang said.
She noted that the latest outbreak in the Chinese capital is highly likely caused by a virus from overseas.
“No matter how much effort we make in China, given the current situation around the world, it’s hard to fend off all the risks. I feel powerless, the virus is so cunning,” she said.
Confidence from experience
Several prominent medical experts who have played crucial roles in fighting COVID-19 in the past few months all expressed strong confidence in winning this new battle in Beijing. Some also said that the situation now is “preventable and controllable.”
“The good news is that all cases are related to Xinfadi market with no other transmission routes seen, which also indicate that prevention and control work is still at the early stages of the viral spread,” Zhang was quoted as saying in the post.
Beijing is very big with a large geographical area and a large population. The area involved in the epidemic is very small, and the rest is safe, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Monday. “Given the current situation, we should track and manage people relevant to the transmission chain, which is the most important step in cutting off the spread,” he said.
The precision and rapid response in prevention and control work that Beijing is undertaking now won’t affect the overall prevention and control strategy nationwide, which should be normal prevention and control throughout the country in the future, Zhang Wenhong said. It would be wise to allow the epidemic to reach close to zero infections while resuming normal, he said.
While some experts lauded Beijing’s reaction being faster than that of Wuhan, it was still hard to make any prediction for whether the second wave would come, as the virus transmission route may be abnormal within which the virus could be transmitted through contaminated objects.
The next three days will be critical for Beijing to handle the epidemic. The number of cases reported by Beijing in the last three days indicates to an overall evolution of the epidemic, Wu said. If there isn’t any significant increase over the next few days, the situation will be controlled on a certain scale.
Some experts also predicted that the next 20 to 30 days would be very crucial for Beijing to decide on whether to further raise its epidemic response level while the public is also advised to take precautions including wearing masks and washing hands frequently.