China trying to 'run faster than the virus', more mass Covid-19 tests and lockdowns expected: NHC

BEIJING - More mass tests and targeted lockdowns will be needed to tackle outbreaks of the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus, Chinese officials said on Friday (April 29), in a clear indication that the government will not be loosening its tight Covid-19 restrictions any time soon.

Omicron has caused other countries to pivot and adopt a strategy of living with Covid-19 but China is trying to "run faster than the virus", said Dr Liang Wannian, the head of the National Health Commission's (NHC) Covid-19 task force.

"If we do a good job in early detection, quarantine and treatment, we will have greater precision in terms of prevention and control. We will not need to adopt measures on a wider scale, but in a more precise and targeted area," said Dr Liang.

Chinese officials say that Omicron, with its highly infectious nature and short incubation period of three to four days, continues to pose a grave challenge to its "dynamic-zero" Covid-19 strategy.

The example of Shanghai, where the authorities have been trying to snuff out an outbreak since the start of March, showed that swift and decisive measures were needed, Dr Liang said at a press briefing on Friday.

"If it spreads fast, we must act quickly and take prompt actions in order to win in this race of time," he said, adding that the authorities would use rapid antigen tests in addition to regular nucleic acid tests to prevent a surge in cases.

China is battling its worst spike of Covid-19 cases since the pandemic started - with outbreaks in both Shanghai and Beijing.

While the outbreak in Shanghai is stabilising - the financial hub reported 15,034 cases on Thursday, down from more than 20,000 earlier this week - the situation in Beijing remains uncertain, with the city reporting another 49 cases on top of the cluster detected last week.

In Shanghai, where the virus has been spreading since last month, the restrictions have left residents in the city of 25 million locked up at home without reliable access to food, basic necessities and medical care.

Officials on Friday signalled that despite public unhappiness over lockdown measures in Shanghai, there would be no deviating from this approach.

"If individual places are not resolute and decisive enough... the virus may take root and rapidly spread, and there will be spillover or cross-regional spread. This will cause significant loss of lives and property, and seriously affect economic and social development," said NHC vice-minister Li Bin.

While the outbreak in Shanghai continues to rage, the central government has praised the efforts of the local authorities in Jilin, Shenzhen and Tianjin who have curbed burgeoning outbreaks recently through lockdowns and mass testing.

It is an approach that even the officials admit will be costly in terms of "human capital and money".

The standard cost of a nucleic acid test in Beijing, for instance, is 24.9 yuan (S$5.20). Testing 20 million people in the capital - as the authorities did this week - would by that metric have cost nearly 1.5 billion yuan, as most residents were ordered to be tested thrice.

The city government is bearing the cost of the tests if they are done at government-run booths. Samples are tested in batches of five or 10 to lower costs and speed up the tests.

Defending China's zero-tolerance approach on Friday, officials said the lockdowns required for the strategy to work were not in conflict with economic development.

While some people's lives might be affected, normal life and normal economic activities can carry on in the rest of the country, said Dr Liang.

Mr Li said that with China's unbalanced development and insufficient medical resources, loosening restrictions would lead to a huge number of infections and deaths among the elderly, children and pregnant women.

Experts say the message is clear to other local governments - better be safe than sorry.

The concern is that with Beijing placing such emphasis on its zero-tolerance strategy, local governments will turn to blunt tools such as city-wide lockdowns the moment a handful of cases appear.

On Thursday, the city of Guangzhou cancelled hundreds of flights and began testing 5.6 million people after one suspected Covid-19 case was reported.

"While officials say that they will not impose a lockdown easily, what we have seen is that cities will resort to it even when they have just a few cases. It is going to be very damaging to the economy and social lives," said Dr Jin Dongyan, a virus expert at the University of Hong Kong.