Are we back to square one? More than 2,000 tourists visiting China’s Inner Mongolia region have been sent to hotels to undergo two weeks of quarantine after the detection of fresh Covid-19 cases in the area.
The move follows reports of an outbreak of COVID-19 in the vast, lightly populated region that attracts visitors. The country’s authorities have demanded high vigilance at ports of entry amid growing infections. Meanwhile, health officials have told Reuters that china’s latest COVID-19 outbreak is developing rapidly.
From October 17-29, some 377 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were reported, National Health Commission (NHC) data showed. China has tackled a series of outbreaks this year since it largely contained a national spread in early 2020.
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What is China’s Zero tolerance Covid policy?
The rest of the world has also reported clusters in the past, and most countries worked out how to coexist with COVID, but China has maintained its zero-tolerance. The country has urged vigilance around border areas and ports to prevent infected inbound travellers, has already started to quarantine travellers and is testing millions in order to contain the infection among locals. “Within the past 14 days, 14 provincial areas have reported new locally transmitted cases or asymptomatic carriers,” the NHC spokesperson Mi Feng told Reuters. Reportedly, Homebound flights booked by Chinese citizens who live abroad are often cancelled at the last minute.
While, the world has begun to gradually open up amid ramped-up vaccination drives and social distancing practices, China is one of the few still clinging to a strategy of elimination.
However, the policy’s success in preventing the virus from spreading across the vast country serves as a stark contrast to the situations in many western countries. Since last year, fewer than 100,000 cases have been officially recorded, among a population of about 1.4 billion. At least 4,634 have died. Comparing the tally with the US, it reported nearly 46m cases and more than 740,000 deaths. The UK has reported nearly 9 million cases and more than 140,000 deaths.
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Is China’s population vaccinated enough?
China has given 1.07 billion people complete COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Oct. 29, National Health Commission spokesperson Mi Feng said. That accounts for about 75.8% of China’s 1.41 billion people. A total of 2.26 billion vaccine doses had been given in China as of Oct. 29, official data showed.
Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping on Saturday has called for mutual recognition of COVID-19 vaccines based on the World Health Organization’s emergency use list, according to a transcript of his remarks published by the official Xinhua news agency. Speaking to the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit in Rome, Xi said China had provided more than 1.6 billion COVID shots to the world, and was working with 16 nations to cooperate on manufacturing doses. “China is willing to work with all parties to improve the accessibility and affordability of COVID-19 vaccines in developing countries,” Xi said. As of now, two Chinese vaccines, one from Sinovac Biotech and one from Sinopharm, have been included in the WHO’s emergency use list.
Covid-19 Origin is Still a Mystery?
US intelligence agencies said that they may never be able to identify the origins of COVID-19, as they released a new, more detailed version of their review. However, it is still a mystery if the Coronavirus first emerged from an animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab.
Reuters reported, the Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses for how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans. But it said analysts disagree on which is more likely or whether any definitive assessment can be made at all. The report also dismissed suggestions that the coronavirus originated as a bioweapon, saying proponents of this theory “do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and have been accused of spreading disinformation.
‘It May be Last Chance to Find Covid-19 Orginis’
The World Health Organization (WHO) in October formed a new advisory group on dangerous pathogens, stating that it may be “our last chance” to determine the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and has urged China to provide data from early cases. China has repeatedly dismissed theories that the virus leaked from one of its laboratories and has said no more visits are needed. A WHO-led team spent four weeks in and around Wuhan earlier this year with Chinese scientists, and said in a joint report in March that the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal but further research was needed.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said that the investigation was hampered by a dearth of raw data pertaining to the first days of the outbreak’s spread and has called for lab audits.
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