Dynamic zero-COVID policy to continue

The latest COVID-19 outbreak, which has affected 28 provinciallevel regions, is controllable, and China will continue with its dynamic zero-COVID policy, which has proved to be effective against the highly infectious Omicron variant, the National Health Commission said on March 15.

Mi Feng, commission spokesman, said at a news briefing that the fast-spreading Omicron variant is the principal cause of most of the domestic outbreaks.

“With the increasing occurrence of infection clusters, the number of new cases has risen rapidly and a growing number of regions have been hit by the virus,” he said. “The epidemic situation is severe and complicated.”

Lei Zhenglong, deputy director of the commission’s Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control, said that as of March 14, the Chinese mainland had recorded more than 15,000 local infections in 28 provincial-level regions this month, amid the fourth wave of pandemic that hit its neighbors hard.

PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY Chinese mainland medical workers leave Shenzhen Bay Port for Hong Kong on March 14 to support the local fight against the COVID-19 epidemic. The team includes 36 doctors and 39 nurses from 14 public hospitals in neighboring Guangdong province.