30 million under lockdown as China faces big Covid-19 surge

Health officials in China yesterday doubled down on the country's "dynamic zero" policy towards Covid-19 as cases continued to surge, with 30 million people under various levels of lockdown.

This is now the biggest Covid-19 surge in China since the start of the pandemic.

"Expert analysis and judgment show that our current policy of "dynamic zero" and a series of preventive and control measures have been effective in responding to the Omicron variant outbreak," said Mr Lei Zhenglong, deputy director of the National Health Commission's (NHC) Bureau of Disease Control. The current surge has been blamed mostly on the highly transmissible but less severe Omicron variant.

Earlier yesterday, the health authority reported 5,370 new infections for the day before, of which 1,768 were asymptomatic. China keeps a separate tally for patients who test positive but present no symptoms. More than 19,800 new infections have been reported in the past two weeks.

Officials have resorted to the usual playbook like never before in dealing with the situation - aggressively "testing, tracing and isolating".

While the numbers in China are still fairly low compared with global figures, and the death rate has remained below 5,000 - most of which occurred early in the pandemic - it is still startling in a country adamant on completely eradicating the virus.

At least 13 cities are now in the grip of a full lockdown, while dozens of others are in partial ones.

The recent surge has triggered mass testing, and companies are ordering employees to work from home. Public transport in several cities has also been suspended.

Most of the current cases have been reported in the northern province of Jilin, where residents in several cities, including the provincial capital, Changchun, have been ordered to stay home. Builders are racing to construct temporary hospitals to cope with the spike in cases.

The provincial party secretary, Mr Jing Junhai, said that the situation was moving to a "serious and complex stage", but vowed to ensure zero new cases within a week.

The NHC said it had sent a team of experts to Jilin as well as reinforcement medical teams from four other provinces.

But residents told The Straits Times that while many people were ordered to stay home and automotive factories told to shut production lines, some employees have been asked to quarantine in their workplaces to minimise economic disruption.

During the media briefing yesterday, health officials insisted there was no need for a shift in China's response to the situation.

"Just like the characteristics of the Omicron variant are more infectious and more hidden, we require our response measures to be more timely, faster, stricter and more effective," Mr Lei said.

Cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen, which are still allowing international flights, are also experiencing a sharp rise in cases, mainly from imported infections.

In a bid to ease the strain on Shanghai's healthcare system, China's civil aviation regulator yesterday ordered 106 international flights arriving in the financial hub to divert to other cities for seven weeks, beginning on March 21.

The 106 flights include those operated by Air China, China Eastern, Shanghai Airlines, Juneyao Air and Spring Airlines, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said.

SEE THE BIG STORY