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Chinese authorities are testing millions of people, imposing lockdowns and closing schools after several cases of the locally transmitted novel coronavirus were diagnosed in recent days in three cities.
As temperatures drop, large-scale measures are being implemented in the cities of Tianjin, Shanghai and Manzhouli, despite the low number of new cases, compared to the United States and several European countries.
Many experts and Chinese government officials have warned that the virus is spreading more in cold climates. Recent outbreaks have shown that there is a risk of the virus returning, despite being widely controlled in China.
The National Health Commission has reported two new locally transmitted cases in Shanghai in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to seven since Friday.
China has recorded 86,442 cases and 4,634 deaths since the virus was first detected in central China’s Wuhan city last year.
The last two confirmed cases in Shanghai were close contacts with another case – a Pudong International Airport employee who was diagnosed with COVID-19 in early November.
On Sunday, Pudong International Airport decided to test its employees and collected 17,719 more samples.
Authorities plan to test others in neighboring communities if more cases are detected.
Videos on social media, purportedly of workers, showed what appeared to be chaotic scenes at the airport as they received last-minute orders for tests.
Shanghai has been more selective with mass testing, targeting people associated with a particular location, rather than entire districts.
In Tianjin, authorities conducted more than 2.2 million tests in the new Binhai district, after five cases of local transmission were discovered last week.
In Manzhouli, a city with more than 200,000 inhabitants, local health authorities are examining all residents, after two cases were diagnosed last Saturday.
They closed all schools and public places and banned gatherings, such as banquets.
China has resorted to an aggressive approach whenever new cases of local transmission are found, including immediately closing schools, isolating residential communities and entire neighborhoods, and conducting massive testing.
Tianjin authorities closed a kindergarten and transferred all teachers, family members and students to a centralized quarantine space.
China’s approach to controlling the pandemic has been criticized for being draconian. The country initially isolated the city of Wuhan, where the first cases were diagnosed, for more than two months to contain the virus. The entrances and exits were closed and the residents were confined.
China self-proclaims its solution, however, as a lesson for other countries to study.
“Worldwide, only China has the capacity to reach zero cases. Other countries do not have this capacity,” said Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, during a news conference. via online.
“Getting to zero cases is really the most economically effective way to prevent the epidemic,” he explained. “Use a tougher hand and get to zero cases, only then will people feel more secure.”
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