China is experiencing its worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years as 17 million residents were placed under lockdown in the city of Shenzhen, and virus cases doubled to nearly 3 400.
Residents of Shenzhen were told to stay at home as it battles to eradicate an Omicron surge linked to neighbouring city Hong Kong, while authorities have closed schools in China’s biggest city and global financial hub, Shanghai.
“If prevention and control is not strengthened in a timely and decisive manner, it could easily become large-scale community transmission,” Shenzhen health official Lin Hancheng said at a Sunday briefing, as AFP reports.
The lockdown is said to last until 20 March and three rounds of mass testing will be launched.
In addition, almost 18 provinces are battling clusters of both the Omicron and Delta variants as COVID-19 infections surge across the country, resulting in multiple northeastern cities being locked down, the news agency adds.
Concerns are also mounting after China maintained a strict ‘zero-COVID’ policy when clusters emerged, along with speedy lockdown and travel restrictions, as well as mass testing. But this recent outbreak has now put its resilience and efficacy in question.
The city of Jilin was partially locked down on Saturday and deputy director of the provincial health commission, Zhang Yan said that the emergency response mechanism in some areas is “not robust enough”.
“There is insufficient understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant … and judgement has been inaccurate,” he said in a briefing.
This surge saw health authorities allowing the public to purchase rapid self-test kits for the first time, even though nucleic acid tests will continue to be the main method of testing.
According to AFP, this shift suggests that China might be anticipating that official efforts will not be able to contain the virus, while a Chinese scientist expressed that the country should aim to “co-exist” with COVID like other places across the world are doing.
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