China lockdown.. for 3 cases
OFFICIALS stand guard at a locked down residential area as China imposes more brutal Covid restrictions.
Yuzhou, a city with a population of more than one million was locked down, after just three Covid cases.
Its transport system was shut down and non-essential stores close overnight.
All residents have been told to stay indoors with sentries posted at community gates
A similar lockdown was imposed in Xi’an, home to 13 million, on December 23. A total of 95 symptomatic cases were reported there on Monday, down from a peak of more than 150 a day.
The lockdowns come less than a month before the Winter Olympics kick off in Beijing. They are part of China’s Covid-zero policy, which some scientists believe won’t work against the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Ahead of the Games, foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters his country had “formulated an efficient and highly effective defence system”.
This involved thousands of staff entering a bubble earlier this week with athletes and media joining on arrival.
Testing rules to be relaxed
most recent date for which complete data is available, up from 136.4 on November 30. However, 85% of over65s have had three doses of the vaccine, cutting the likelihood of suffering severe illness.
Testing rules will be relaxed in a bid to ease crippling staff shortages in key sectors including the emergency services and food production. Those who test positive in a lateral flow test but have no symptoms will no longer have to have a follow-up PCR test.
Anyone who has symptoms must still take a PCR test and those who test positive with any test must still isolate for at least seven days.
The changes, starting this week in
Scotland and Wales and from January 11 in England, are aimed at freeing up lab capacity for PCR tests.
Prof John Edmunds, a member of the SAGE advisory panel, said a PCR takes up a lot of time, money and lab resources. But he said dropping the tests will give researchers “slightly less information” on variants. Layla Moran, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, said there is a risk “we could miss variants that may be more deadly or resistant to vaccines”.
Around a million people across the UK are currently self-isolating due to Covid and that is likely to increase with the return to school this week.
The Fire Brigades Union said almost a third of London’s fire engines had been out of action during the last week.
Almost 10% of operational firefighters in the capital had either tested positive or were self-isolating.
And several hospital trusts have declared critical incidents.
Government adviser Dr Mike Tildesley said restrictions are better earlier, adding: “Once you’re beyond the peak that has much less effect.
“It does look like we may be in a situation where we’re getting cases very high, but there’s early evidence things might be turning around in London.”