- China’s health authorities are staging an extensive contract tracing and testing effort, after two more workers at Shanghai airport tested positive for COVID-19
- The latest cases follow another positive case on Friday, also from a worker in the airport, bringing locally transmitted cases in the city to seven
- In response, China’s National Health Commission began testing the airport’s entire 17,000 staff to help stem the spread of the virus
- New cases have also been recorded in the Chinese cities of Tianjin and Manzhoul, which has led the government to test more than 2.2 million residents and implement widespread shutdown measures
- Officials are warning that the low winter temperatures in China could encourage the virus to spread quicker, adding to the governments’ calls for a rapid response
China’s health authorities are staging an extensive contract tracing and testing effort, after two more workers at Shanghai airport tested positive for COVID-19.
The latest cases follow a positive case on Friday, also from a worker in the airport, bringing locally transmitted cases in the city to seven.
In response, China’s National Health Commission have implemented widespread contact tracing protocols, which led to scenes of chaos on Monday when government health officials attempted wrangle the airport’s entire 17,000 staff for forced testing.
Meanwhile similar crackdowns are being enacted in the Chinese cities of Tianjin and Manzhouli, where separate COVID-19 clusters are being recorded.
Schools in Tianjin and Manzhouli have been closed, with and all teachers, children and families connected to an outbreak at one kindergarten being moved to a centralised quarantine space.
In Tianjin, more than 2.2 million testing samples have been collected, and the government intends to test Manzhouli’s entire 200,000-person populace.
Officials are warning that the lower winter temperatures in China could encourage the virus to spread quicker, adding to the governments’ calls for a rapid response.
To-date China has recorded more than 86,000 cases of COVID-19 and just over 4,600 related deaths. However, the vast majority of these figures were recorded between December and March, before the lockdown measures brought the figures well below 100 daily cases.
The virus is believed to have originated in the Chinese province of Wuhan, which faced similarly stringent lockdown measures for more than two months at the beginning of the year.
Commenting in September on China’s pandemic response, Zeng Guang, the chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said the government’s strategy against the virus was to “clear to zero.”
“Use a heavier hand, and get to zero, then people will feel reassured,” he added.