Shanghai Reports Zero Cases Outside Quarantined Areas
China's Shanghai reported zero COVID-19 cases outside its quarantined areas for April 29, the first time since the recent outbreak in the eastern financial hub, according to local health authorities.To get more news about
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The city recorded 8,932 new local asymptomatic coronavirus cases on April 29, versus 9,545 a day earlier, the local government said in a statement on Saturday.Confirmed symptomatic cases in Shanghai stood at 1,249, down from 5,487 the previous day, it said, adding that all the asymptomatic and confirmed cases were found in quarantined areas.
The city also reported 47 new COVID-19 deaths on April 29, down from 52 a day earlier, according to the statement.
China has been sticking to a "dynamic zero-COVID approach", prescribing central quarantine for anyone testing positive.Shanghai, battling China's biggest COVID-19 outbreak, put the entire city into lockdown at the beginning of the month, and only recently allowed residents in lower-risk areas to leave their homes.It is unclear whether the entire city will be forced under lockdown. For now, officials have locked down only specific areas where positive cases were found. On Wednesday, Beijing’s Tongzhou district suspended classes for all its schools from kindergarten through high school.
Given that China for now remains committed to its “zero-COVID” approach, “I do think we will continue to see the use of these lockdowns across the country,” said Karen Grepin, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong. “If anything, the omicron variant has made it more challenging to control the virus and thus more stringent measures are needed if the goal is to continue to strive for local elimination.”
The “zero-COVID” strategy has worked well against previous versions of the virus, ensuring that for most of the past two years, people in China were able to live a mostly virus-free life.And even as factory and logistical shutdowns threaten China's economic growth, Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly ruled out moving away from the zero-COVID policy.
According to the daily statistics released by the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, on Tuesday, there were 1,606 new confirmed COVID-19 cases and 11,956 asymptomatic infections. Among the confirmed cases, 1,253 were previously reported as asymptomatic infections. The city's official death tally stands at 238 as of Tuesday, putting the fatality rate at 0.045%.
Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, points out those numbers may not give a complete picture of the outbreak's toll.
Worldwide, the fatality rate of omicron for unvaccinated people over 80 years old is 20%, he said."If you do the math, the death toll could be as high as 120,000," Huang told VOA Mandarin.
According to Huang, because a large portion of the Chinese population has not been exposed to this virus, relaxing restrictions would lead to an immediate surge in cases and deaths. He stressed that to get out of this vicious cycle, China must protect the vulnerable population and build resilience to the virus.
In the meantime, Shanghai undertakes daily polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and antigen testing of millions and accelerates transfers of people who test positive for COVID-19 to large quarantine centers.
"I do think there is a real risk that the mass public testing is actually spreading COVID rather than controlling it," said Lawrence Gostin in an email. Gostin is a professor of global health law at Georgetown University and the director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law.
"Antigen tests can also be done rapidly at home and is an important public health tool," Gostin said. "PCR tests require laboratories, and it poses a risk if people gather together for PCR tests."
