What do experts say about sporadic cases in Beijing?

At the end of December 22, Covid-19 struck again, casting a shadow over the Chinese people's plans to celebrate the New Year. From : to 24: on December 25th, 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 2 new confirmed cases in COVID-19, including 12 imported cases and 8 local cases, including 6 cases in Liaoning and 2 cases in Beijing.

In the days from December 23rd to 26th, there have been 1 cases of Covid-19 infection in Beijing, and Shunyi District of Beijing officially declared a state of war today.

"The epidemic situation in the capital has been sporadic and sporadic, and the prevention and control is facing a major test. The situation of prevention and control in the capital is severe and complicated, and there should be no luck. We must tighten the string of epidemic prevention and control at all times in an emergency state." On the afternoon of December 25th, 22, Xu Hejian, spokesman of Beijing Municipal Government, said at the press conference on epidemic prevention and control in COVID-19.

(On December 26th, a two-day nucleic acid test was conducted in Wangjing Street and donghu street, Wangjing District, Chaoyang District, Beijing. (Source: Zhongxin Video Screenshot))

There are many sporadic cases in Beijing

Previously, several major administrative districts in Beijing had not reported new local cases for several months, but in mid-December, Chaoyang District took the lead in breaking the calm. On December 14th, an entry man who ended the quarantine period was diagnosed as COVID-19. After that, on December 17th and 18th, two close contacts related to him successively tested positive for Covid-19 nucleic acid, and the Dashanzi branch of Hanting Hotel in Chaoyang District was designated as a medium-risk area.

more than a week later, on December 23rd, Fu Moumou, who lives in Lianzhu Garden Community, Airport, Shunyi District and works in a company in Aobei Science and Technology Park, Haidian District, was diagnosed as asymptomatic after taking the postgraduate entrance examination. 197 people in Shunyi District and Haidian District and 3755 people in the working park were tested for nucleic acid, and the results were negative.

On the 24th of the next day, Maizidian Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing reported that a staff member of Asiana Airlines under its jurisdiction in Beijing returned to South Korea on December 22nd and tested positive for nucleic acid, which was asymptomatic. On the same day, a restaurant employee in Financial Street, Xicheng District, Beijing was diagnosed as asymptomatic. The employee is engaged in cold chain related work, and has carried out centralized isolation medical observation on his close contacts.

from : to 24: on December 25th, there were 2 new cases of confirmed infection in Beijing, both living in Shunyi District. One of the infected people is a convenience store employee. Because the store sells cold and fresh food, the company found a positive result on the 25th when it arranged COVID-19 test. Another infected person is an employee of Huihe (China) Co., Ltd., which is located in Lixingxing Center in Chaoyang District. On December 26th and 27th, residents in Wangjing, Donghu and Airport were asked to carry out nucleic acid testing.

At present, Beijing is carrying out nucleic acid testing for relevant personnel in 3 streets of Chaoyang District, 12 towns of Shunyi District and Tianzhu Comprehensive Insurance Zone. The results show that 5 people are infected with Covid-19, all of whom are close contacts of the two confirmed cases. The possibility of further discovery of cases is not ruled out.

(On December 26th, a two-day nucleic acid test was conducted in Wangjing Street and donghu street, Wangjing District, Chaoyang District, Beijing. (Source: screenshot of Sino-Singapore video)

At the press conference on epidemic prevention and control work held on the afternoon of 25th, Chen Bei, deputy secretary-general of Beijing Municipal People's Government, said that the key to epidemic prevention and control during the "two festivals" was to insist on reducing personnel flow. For example, cadres of party and government organs took the lead in celebrating holidays in Beijing, so it was unnecessary not to leave Beijing or leave the country. In principle, large-scale gathering activities such as temple fairs and sports events will not be held; Bus, subway, etc. increase the number of trains as appropriate, and the subway is limited by 9%.

As for college students who are one of the mobile troops, Li Yi, a spokesperson of Beijing Municipal Education Commission, said on December 26th that at present, colleges and universities in Beijing are entering the final winter vacation one after another, and they will make good arrangements for the winter vacation according to the principle of "peak-shifting", organize students to leave school in an orderly manner, and guide students who leave school to do well on the way and at home. "Strictly implementing various prevention and control measures does not mean that students in colleges and universities cannot leave Beijing to return home."

At the beginning of December, the Ministry of Education issued a document, demanding that colleges and universities take winter vacations in batches. According to incomplete statistics, some schools with early holidays start their winter holidays on New Year's Day, while others start their holidays one month later. Many university graduate students told China Newsweek that after finishing the final exam recently, their tutors told them to leave school as soon as possible and try not to stay in school.

Jin Dongyan, a professor and virologist at the School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Hong Kong, believes that at this stage of the epidemic, the most important thing for ordinary people is to do two things: one is to cooperate with the government to track down close contacts, and the other is to raise awareness of epidemic prevention, for example, not to have large-scale gatherings in private. He stressed that not detecting infected people does not mean that there is no epidemic, and detecting cases does not mean that the epidemic is very serious, so we should be cautious because most people in China are susceptible.

Pay attention to the immunization and mobility of key high-risk groups

It is different from the clustering epidemic in the last round of new areas. Although some new cases in Beijing have similarities, such as working in cold chain or selling chilled products, there is no correlation between them, and the causes of infection or traceability results need to be ascertained. According to Beijing's notification, the two confirmed cases in Shunyi on the 25th had no clear contact history with confirmed cases, suspected cases and asymptomatic infected persons, no contact history with wild animals, and had not been to medium and high-risk areas in China within 14 days before onset.

"It must be caused by input." Feng Zijian, deputy director of the National CDC, told China Newsweek. As for whether it is necessary to upgrade the prevention and control strategy, he believes that "no, the current measures are very effective, and the focus is on how to implement the current measures. It is inevitable that the input will cause individual cases. "

"There are many cases in Beijing that have no epidemiological connection, which means there may be multiple sources, which is quite worrying." Jin Dongyan, a professor and virologist at the School of Biomedicine of the University of Hong Kong, told China Newsweek that we should be vigilant, especially to prevent the emergence of super communicators.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with China Newsweek at the end of October that it is unlikely that there will be a local outbreak in China this autumn and winter, but there may be sporadic cases or cluster outbreaks. Because of the experience of new land in the early stage, it is unlikely that the epidemic will reach the scale of three or four hundred people in the future.

Large-scale nucleic acid detection, epidemiological tracking and isolation treatment in pursuit of "dynamic zero clearing" are the magic weapons for China to enter the normalization stage of epidemic prevention and control. Jin Dongyan suggested that when the epidemic situation is not serious, the goal of prevention and control is to find out scattered infected people, and the most important thing is to track down close contacts. In the last round of new epidemic, Beijing did a good job in tracking down close contacts, and found out all the confirmed cases. When Beijing carried out the due inspection, it detected 9 million people and the result was zero diagnosis.

(On December 26th, a two-day nucleic acid test was conducted in Wangjing Street and donghu street, Wangjing District, Chaoyang District, Beijing. (Image source: screenshot of Sino-Singapore video)

Lu Hongzhou, secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, told China Newsweek that imported cases are inevitable because the global epidemic is still spreading and the northern hemisphere is in winter, and the virus survives for a long time at a lower temperature. Now, the focus should be on preventing clustering cases caused by imported cases. Specifically, it is necessary to strictly implement various prevention and control measures, focus on strengthening management in ports, international logistics, cold chains, etc., and let relevant employees be vaccinated as soon as possible.

The following New Year's Day and Spring Festival are important nodes of population flow. Lu Hongzhou believes that as long as strict normalization epidemic prevention measures are taken, and some people have obtained vaccine protection or will be vaccinated soon, the risk of the "two festivals" epidemic is not too great. He said, "as long as no one is infected, no matter how people flow, it will not lead to transmission." Wu Zunyou also believes that many people are not terrible, and controlling the source of infection is the key. Facing the coming Spring Festival travel rush, efforts should be made to reduce the flow of people who are likely to be infected to the society, resulting in potential risks.

People engaged in cold chain and other related work are also the priority groups in China's vaccination strategy. According to China's vaccination strategy, during the winter and spring of this year, COVID-19 vaccination will be carried out for some key people, including workers in cold chain logistics, customs border inspection, medical structure, agricultural seafood market, public transportation and other industries.

Zhang Wenhong, director of the Infectious Diseases Department of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University, wrote on December 12th that before universal vaccination in China, strengthening anti-epidemic and precise prevention and control are still our current choices.