As 15 provincial-level regions across the country reported locally transmitted infections last week, Chinese health authorities have called for prompt response and strict implementation of virus control strategies to curb the spread of COVID-19.
According to Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the National Health Commission’s Office of Disease Control and Prevention, who spoke on Feb. 26, Delta and Omicron are the dominant variants in China today. The previous day, the country reported 93 confirmed local infections, including 32 in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (north China) and 30 in Guangdong Province (south China).
Meanwhile, Wu noted that while the number of daily infections in Inner Mongolia remains high, the risk of the virus spreading has decreased. However, he added, infection clusters in several regions, including Guangdong and Yunnan provinces, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south and southwest of the country, are still developing and are likely to spread further.
According to the official, China’s virus control approaches are effective against the Omicron variant, which is currently the dominant strain in the world, and the key to containing its spread is to fully implement the required measures. “The commission guides local governments to expedite nucleic acid testing, epidemiological investigations and management of high-risk groups,” he said.
Meanwhile, as the school spring semester has begun, Liu Peijun, an official with the Ministry of Education, stressed that COVID-19 precautions on campuses should be tightened. Thus, schools in medium and high risk regions are required to postpone the opening and their students will have to delay their return until the risk of local spread of the virus is deemed low. He also said that as of February 26, primary and secondary schools in 25 provincial-level regions across the country have opened for the spring semester, and more than 50 of the 75 universities under the central administration started offline classes.
According to the commission, as of February 25, China had fully vaccinated more than 1.23 billion people, while nearly 555 million had received a booster shot.
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