More Hainan cities in ‘static management’ as COVID cases surge

The rapidly spreading Omicron BA5.1.3 variant that was first reported in Sanya, South China’s Hainan has triggered at least four more cities in the province to impose what officials call “static management,” in a bid to cut off the fast transmission chain that has resulted in a total of 1,140 COVID-19 cases in less than a week.

Following the steps of Sanya, Wanning,

Danzhou, Qionghai and Lingshui have announced that they will impose static management starting from Sunday, which means that local residents must stay indoors and public transportation is suspended.

Between August 1 and Sunday, the province registered 1,140 COVID-19 cases, of which 971 cases are in Sanya and the rest in 10 other cities or counties in the province.

Hainan health authorities said at a press conference on Sunday that this round of the COVID-19 epidemic has spread widely among communities and reached a certain scale. It is in the growing stage, and shows an expanding trend.

The biggest challenge for Hainan in containing the infections is that the actual scale of the epidemic still cannot be clearly identified. The province may need to roll out multiple rounds of mass testing to reduce the risk, experts noted.

Home to some 10.2 million people, Hainan officially rolled out province-scale mass nucleic acid testing on Sunday.

The recent COVID-19 surge on the province may indicate that before the first case was found on August 1, the virus had been spreading among communities for some time, and due to crowds of tourists, the virus then rapidly multiplied, a Beijing-based medical expert surnamed Wang told the Global Times.

“A mass testing will give a basic big picture of the COVID-19 situation across the province, but one test is far from enough,” Wamg said. “Hainan may have to roll out regular mass testing for a long time in order to identify all infected people, just as Shanghai did in the latest outbreak.”