China sees another Covid-19 outbreak with 6 cases in 3 cities in single day
- A dinner with friends has led to infections in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, all in the country’s east
- City governments have moved quickly to contain the outbreak which has emerged just as a Delta wave which began in October was controlled
Three women in Shanghai were diagnosed with the illness on Thursday morning, according to the local government.
The group of friends had travelled to neighbouring city of Suzhou last weekend, where they dined with two men from Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, who were classified as close contacts and also tested positive on Thursday evening.
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Another close contact, who lives in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, was notified by the Shanghai authorities and also tested positive.
The six cases come after an outbreak of the highly transmissible Delta variant emerged in mid-October and infected more than 1,300 people in 21 provinces before being contained.
Only two residual cases were reported in Dalian, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, on Thursday while other provinces reported there had been no growth in numbers for days.
The source of the fresh outbreak is still being traced but it highlights the challenge for China’s strict zero-Covid strategy from the more contagious Delta variant in winter, when cold weather drives people indoors and makes transmission more likely.
Infectious diseases expert Zhang Wenhong from Shanghai’s Huashan Hospital, who also heads an expert panel on Covid-19 treatment in the city, said China had accumulated a lot of experience in prevention and control in terms of “dynamic zero Covid”.
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The successful containment of recent outbreaks showed China was able to meet the challenges of fighting the epidemic on a regular basis, he said, and the key to containing the current outbreak remained a quick and precise response.
“This outbreak in Shanghai should be seen as just another scenario in the national epidemic control in autumn and winter,” Zhang said.
“We may encounter similar battles again in the future and how to achieve dynamic zero-Covid in the shortest possible time, and with the least impact on the public, will be the focus and difficulty of our epidemic prevention work.”
Zhang said all three Shanghai cases had been detected and confirmed in time for immediate isolation and the screening of close contacts – a task which would have more difficult with more people impacted if there had been a delay.
He urged anyone with fever or flu-like symptoms after travel or gatherings to seek immediate medical attention and get tested.
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The governments of the affected cities have acted swiftly. In Shanghai, 12 hospitals have shut down their outpatient and emergency services to screen “people, places and environment concerned” until further notice, according to the director of the city’s health commission. The city’s long-haul bus services also suspended over 50 bus services to several cities in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
By Friday morning, 182 of the women’s close contacts, as well as a further 337 people, had been placed in quarantine. All tested negative for the virus. More than 54,700 Shanghai residents also returned negative results.
At Zhejiang University, in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, students queued overnight for immediate coronavirus tests, after a man who works at the university’s museum tested positive.
In a statement on Thursday evening, the university said its Zijingang campus had been closed and classes moved online while gatherings and exchanges outside the university were suspended.
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In Suzhou, where the six infected people stayed, 510 close contacts, as well as 823 of their close contacts, all tested negative. By Friday morning, city authorities had tested 24,603 people. Of the 24,503 results obtained so far, all were negative.
Xuzhou authorities on Thursday evening advised residents not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary, and only if they had obtained negative coronavirus test results in the previous 48 hours.
All types of gatherings – including concerts, sporting events and bazaar fairs – have been suspended or cancelled. Meetings, exhibitions, lectures, training and other crowd-gathering activities were suspended, with a recommendation to switch online. Weddings were advised to be postponed and funerals simplified.
Indoor entertainment venues such as cinemas, museums, beauty salons and gyms and bars were ordered to close and training centres to suspend in-person teaching.
