Top adviser defends prolonged lockdown
The senior adviser on the nation’s Covid-19 response has sought to justify the prolonged lockdown and measures in Shanghai, citing its large population and widespread community transmission.
Liang Wannian, head of the Covid-19 response expert panel under the National Health Commission, also ruled out any chance of supporting tailor-made strategies for different parts of the country, saying that “dynamic clearance” was still key to China beating the Omicron variant.
He said yesterday Omicron created difficulty for megacities such as Shanghai and Beijing and put greater demands on testing and treatment programmes.
“Shanghai has a high population density and suffered widespread community spread, which is more difficult to prevent and control compared to an outbreak in a localised cluster. It will take longer and more effort. Screening strategies, such as nucleic acid testing and antigen testing, will take longer and be more frequent,” Liang said.
The Shanghai government defined three categories of risk for residential areas in the city and allowed limited freedom for those at the lowest risk. But it has yet to reveal a timeline for reopening.
Beijing has seen local cases growing from six to more than 200 within a week, and has taken precautionary measures.
The municipal government ordered three rounds of testing involving about 20 million people by today and started the Labour Day public holidays a day earlier so students could take part in the testing programme and avoid transmission at school.
“Both Shanghai and Beijing are megacities with large population bases, population densities and mobility, which creates great difficulties for prevention and control,” Liang said. “They cannot be expected to complete the job well and as quickly as in the case of other cities and regions.”
To a degree, this would test the governance system and the capacity of these megacities, he added.
Liang said the recent drop in cases in Shanghai showed the measures were working and had curbed the rising momentum, but it recorded more than 10,000 local infections a day and the “situation was still severe and complex”.
A city with 25 million people had very different nucleic testing capacity and needs from a city of 1 million. The testing could be done within 24 hours when the resources were sufficient, but if not it would take much longer, Liang said.
He rejected suggestions China could adjust local measures to “living with the virus” in some places while others adopted the “dynamic clearance” strategy.
“If individual places are not resolute and decisive in dynamic zero and [do not] make changes, it might lead to the rapid spread of a local epidemic, or even crossregional transmission, causing significant losses to people’s lives and property, and seriously affecting economic and social development,” he said.