New Delhi: China reported over 3,300 fresh Covid-19 infections on Saturday, Bloomberg reported. This was more than double the previous day, and the highest daily spike in two years.
The country is facing its worst outbreak since the early days of the pandemic and officials are stepping up efforts to stem the spread.
The National Health Commission said on Sunday that there were 1,807 confirmed local infections and 1,315 asymptomatic local cases, according to a Bloomberg report.
More than 2,100 cases were recorded in the northeastern province of Jilin. China has reported more than 200 imported cases, the report stated.
The peak of the outbreak had occurred in Wuhan, the virus’s first epicentre. Now, China is grappling with new domestic infections which are surging at a rate not seen since the peak of the outbreak.
On Saturday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan vowed to take stringent measures to stem regional clusters, the report said. She also urged officials to roll out rapid antigen tests on top of nucleic acid testing to keep up with omicron’s spread.
She said that the country should “resolutely hold the bottom line of avoiding resurgence of scale”.
Last week, China approved five rapid Covid antigen tests developed by domestic companies. Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech Co. is one of the firms that got the clearance. According to a report by chinastarmarket.cn, the firm has signed a deal to sell its kits through DaShenLin Pharmaceutical Group Co.’s outlets and online platform.
In order to contain the spread of the virus in their areas, regional governments are stepping up efforts. If people want to leave or enter Shanghai, they are required to provide negative nucleic acid test results within the last 48 hours, according to a statement released by the municipal government late Saturday.
Guangdong province in the south removed six officials from their posts, for a cluster outbreak in Dongguan city on March 1, the Beijing Daily reported. These officials included a deputy chief of the provincial public security department.
China has maintained a strict ‘zero-Covid’ policy enforced by swift lockdowns, travel restrictions, and mass testing when clusters have emerged.
However, the latest flare-up, which is driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant and a spike in asymptomatic cases, is challenging that approach, a report by news agency AFP said.
Local officials said that residents of Jilin have completed six rounds of mass testing, according to the AFP report.
On Friday, the neighbouring city of Changchun was locked down. Changchun is an industrial base of nine million people.
"[The outbreak] reflects that the spread of the Omicron variant is hidden, highly contagious, rapid and difficult to detect in the early stages," Jilin provincial health official Zhang Yan at a press briefing, according to the AFP report.
Quoting Zhang Yan, the report stated that it also reflects the rapid rise of the virus situation in individual regions and the lack of expansion capacity of medical resources, resulting in limited centralised admission and treatment in a short period of time.
State media reported that the mayor of Jilin and the head of the Changchun health commission were dismissed from their jobs Saturday, the AFP report said.
According to official announcements, the smaller cities of Siping and Dunhua, both in Jilin province, were locked down Thursday and Friday.
In order to treat Covid-19 patients, three makeshift hospitals were built in Hunchun city, Xinhua reported on Saturday.
(With Agency Inputs)