New outbreak calls for quick response

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a child for nucleic acid test at a community in Dongjing township, Songjiang district of Shanghai, East China, March 13, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

In a country where any local outbreak of the novel coronavirus is sufficient to trigger the lockdown of a neighborhood or a citywide epidemiological investigation, the appearance of 1,807 local cases on the Chinese mainland on Saturday poses a grave challenge due to the Omicron variant.

Although 1,412 out of the 1,807 cases have been reported in Jilin province, with the two largest cities, Changchun and Jilin, accounting for 831 and 571 respectively, the virus is appearing in 20 provincial-level regions. There are now 13 high-risk areas and 209 intermediate-risk areas scattered across the mainland.

That hundreds of asymptomatic cases are also being reported every day, along with confirmed cases, points to the fact that the resurgence of the epidemic is the worst in nearly two years, featuring a fast increase in cases, which means prompt actions and effective measures are needed to control the latest wave of the virus.

The instructions Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan gave on Saturday in response to the epidemic situation serve to show that the country will continue to uphold its dynamic clearing policy.

On behalf of the central authorities, Sun urged local governments to take resolute measures to bring the clusters of infections under control as soon as possible to ensure the achievements the whole country has made in the battle against the virus are not undone.

That means the hard-hit regions, including Jilin, Shandong and Guangdong provinces, must strictly carry out the epidemic prevention and control work, repeatedly screen their populations with nucleic acid tests, rigorously implement centralized and home quarantines and stringently manage the containment and control areas in a bid to completely block community transmission as quickly as possible.

At the same time, attention should be given to guard against imported cases, especially at port cities, by strictly implementing a closed-loop management model. The members of staff in charge of this management in hotels, airports, terminals and hospitals should also be subject to closed-loop management.

That the public health authorities on Friday gave the green light to the public buying antigen test kits will improve the sensitivity of the monitoring and early warning system. Although generally less accurate than nucleic acid testing, which is employed for the country's mass testing campaigns, antigen tests provide quicker results. Sun said that adopting a model of "antigen tests for screening, nucleic acid tests for diagnosis" will improve the early warning mechanism in response to the rapid transmission characteristics of the Omicron variant of the virus.

Clearly in light of Omicron's ease of transmission, people must keep their vigilance high and do all they can to make their due contribution to the country's addressing of the latest challenge from the virus in the shortest time possible.