San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
School cluster puts Beijing on alert
Beijing is on alert after 10 middle school students tested positive for COVID-19, in what city officials said was an initial round of testing.
City officials suspended classes in the school for a week following the positive test results on Friday. The Chinese capital also reported four other confirmed cases that day that were counted separately.
Mainland China reported 24,326 new community-transmitted infections on Saturday, with the vast majority of them asymptomatic cases in Shanghai, where enforcement of a strict “zero-COVID” strategy has drawn global attention. China has doubled down on the approach even in face of the highly transmissible omicron variant. The zero-COVID policy warded off many deaths and widespread outbreaks when faced with less transmissible variants through mass testing and strict lockdowns where people could not leave their homes.
But recent developments in Shanghai have led some to
question whether the strategy is worth the tradeoffs. Many residents in the city have struggled to get adequate food supplies during a lockdown this month, while some were also unable to get drugs or medical attention. Some elderly people died after an outbreak at a hospital led medical staff to be quarantined.
Local media reported that in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, the government ordered the suspension of in-person afterschool activities and classes. The city government is now conducting a round of mass testing to look for more cases.
Peacock, the CDC’s director of immunization services. But authorities worry that could change if kids remain behind on their shots as more people return to normal routines.
Data for the current school year, due in November, should indicate whether the lag persisted, said the CDC’s Shannon Stokley. The data come from schools’ reports on vaccination rates in 47 states plus Washington, D.C.
In 16 states, rates for kids entering kindergarten were at least 95% for measles shots and for the combination diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough shot. The rates were below 90% for the combined whooping cough shot in eight states plus Washington, D.C., and in seven states plus Washington, D.C., for measles shots. For chickenpox vaccinations, 17 states had rates of at least 95% and nine plus Washington, D.C., had rates below 90%.