China – After the first local omicron cases occurred in China, the northeastern city of Tianjin ordered mass tests for the entire population.
As the authorities of the 15 million metropolis announced on Sunday, 20 corona infections have been identified in the city since Friday. Sequencing showed that the first two cases were infections with the omicron variant. Most of the remaining 18 infections were linked to them, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Accordingly, the infected are mainly students and their family members. The authorities expected that testing of the entire population will reveal further infections.
Tianjin is in the “first real battle against Omikron on the Chinese mainland,” the state newspaper “Global Times” quoted an expert as saying. Two Omikron cases had already been reported in China in December. However, these were returnees who were in quarantine in Tianjin and the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou.
Tianjin is a neighboring city to Beijing, where the Winter Olympics are slated to begin on February 4th. Participants in the games should only be allowed to move in Beijing in a sealed “bubble” to prevent the virus from being introduced.
China, which has a strict zero-covid policy, has largely had the virus under control for more than a year. However, there are always local outbreaks. The central Chinese city of Xi’an has been in lockdown for more than two weeks. People are only allowed to leave their homes in absolute exceptions.
Henan province is also fighting a new wave of corona. Three infections have also been reported in the southern Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen since Friday.
Observers believe that if the Omikron variant spreads, it will be much more difficult for China to keep the number of infections nationwide as low as before. There are also indications that the Chinese vaccines have less protection against omicrons than western preparations. Nationwide, China reported 92 new local corona infections on Sunday.
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