The number of newly confirmed cases in Xi'an dropped to 35 yesterday. Can the lockdown be lifted before the Spring Festival?

From the first confirmed case on December 9, 2021, to the city entering closed management at 0:00 on December 23, 2021, to the announcement of 35 new cases yesterday on January 5, 2022 ( A total of 1,758 confirmed cases), and the current epidemic in Xi'an has lasted for 28 days.

When we heard that 35 new cases were diagnosed in a certain city, we felt a little "happy". You can imagine how severe the epidemic is facing this city, and everyone in it is... How many difficulties does a Xi'an person face? Come on Xi'an! Changan Changan! Closer to home, the drop in the number of new cases per day to 35 is good news for Xi'an's current epidemic prevention and control, and the decline for several consecutive days also proves that the prevention and control work has achieved initial results. Let’s talk about it below: Overview of the epidemic situation in Xi’an

Early stage of the epidemic: On December 9, 2021, the first confirmed patient (quarantine hotel staff) was found in Xi’an; the second locally confirmed case was found on December 12 Patient (staff of the Yanta District Clinic); two more confirmed cases were discovered on December 14 (on the campus of Chang'an University).

Mid-stage of the epidemic: After the confirmed cases appeared in Chang'an University, the current epidemic in Xi'an was like an "opened Pandora's box" and became out of control. There were 4 new people added on December 15, 10 new people in double digits on December 18, 52 new people on December 21, 63 new people on December 22, and the cumulative number of new people exceeded 200. ...(You must know that in the past two years, 135 confirmed cases were found in Xi'an alone)

At 0:00 on December 23, Xi'an announced that the city had entered a state of closed management and epidemic prevention and control The situation is serious.

Rapid development period of the epidemic:

Since Xi'an announced that it would enter a state of closed management, everyone has been waiting for news about the improvement of the epidemic and for the turning point of the epidemic to appear, but they did not expect this wait. That's more than ten days.

On the first day after Xi'an was closed, there were 75 new people, then 155, 150, 175, 151, 155, 161, 174, 122, 90, 95, and then the 35 we see today . Xi'an has been under closed management for half a month. Why has the epidemic still not been brought under control?

Faced with the data on confirmed cases released by the media every day, all friends who are worried about the trend of the epidemic in Xi'an will always ask: Why can't the epidemic be controlled even though it has been closed and managed? Are confirmed cases increasing instead of falling?

I roughly checked the development of epidemics in several domestic cities in the past. Basically, effective improvement can be seen in five to seven days after the city enters a closed management state, and some are even shorter. It is rare, if not impossible, for a city like Xi'an to still maintain a high growth rate after more than ten days of closed management.

Zeng Guang, a high-level expert from the National Health Commission and former chief scientist of epidemiology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, also said: The epidemic in Xi'an is the most serious since Wuhan was closed, and he hopes that people across the country will give strong support.

Why did the number of new people in Xi'an continue to increase for many days after the closed management? I think there are the following reasons:

01. Normal phenomenon after closed and centralized management

First of all, we need to recognize a point of view, that is, any city is closed for management due to the epidemic and carries out large-scale epidemic prevention and control. After a round of nucleic acid testing, it was normal to find a large number of cases in a short period of time.

And this is the main purpose of closed management and multiple rounds of nucleic acid tests, which is to screen out hidden confirmed cases and asymptomatic infections that are difficult to find. Closed management, nucleic acid screening, case discovery, centralized management and control, and ultimately complete control are normal and practical epidemic prevention and control processes.

02. Hidden transmission leads to community transmission

The biggest feature or difficulty of the current epidemic in Xi'an is that the "hidden transmission phenomenon" is particularly serious. It was originally a highly transmissible Delta strain, but as a result, covert transmission occurred for a long time. This made the epidemic prevention and control situation facing the entire Xi'an extremely severe.

Especially in the early stages of the epidemic, the phenomenon of hidden transmission made the prevention and control personnel extremely "rushed". Often, they would control the area and start isolation and nuclear screening today, only to find many confirmed cases in other areas the next day. The chain of transmission could not be found, the cause of infection was unclear, and hidden transmission continued to spread, eventually leading to large-scale infections in some communities, and even particularly serious community transmission.

So even after the city was closed and managed, the emergence of many community transmissions caused the number of new confirmed cases to continue to increase. After all, it had already "fallen" before the city was closed, but no one noticed it. The situation is gradually improving. Can Xi'an be lifted from the blockade before the Spring Festival?

Facing the epidemic situation in Xi'an, which seems to have improved, can it be cleared in the short term? Is it possible to complete the unblocking before the Spring Festival? I think the key to the answer lies in whether we can achieve "zero new additions" in the next week. Although the daily number of new cases in Xi'an has begun to decline, 35 cases in a single day is still a relatively high number, indicating that the epidemic prevention and control situation is still at a critical stage and cannot be taken lightly.

Referring to the situation of several previous cities in China, cities under closed management will generally be slowly unblocked about 10-14 days after zero new cases appear, and the complete unblocking will take even longer. There are only about 25 days left until the Spring Festival. If Xi'an can complete or reach zero new additions in the next 5-7 days (around January 10th to 12th), it will continue for another 14 days (around January 24th). Around the 26th), it is basically possible to partially relax the situation on the eve of the Spring Festival.

However, the above views are relatively optimistic at present. First, the severity of the epidemic situation in Xi'an is really not low. It is very difficult to achieve completely zero new cases in the next week; second, the hidden nature of this round of epidemic in Xi'an The spread is serious, and subsequent finishing and elimination work will take time, and a longer period of closed isolation and observation will definitely be required.

So my personal prediction is that if zero new additions can be achieved in the next week, some non-key areas in Xi'an will have the opportunity to be unblocked before the Spring Festival, while key core community places may take longer. All in all, I hope that the epidemic in Xi'an will end soon, and that everyone who wants to go home for the New Year can do so as scheduled.