Omicron cases crash in ‘vital window’ for Chinese city Baise’s outbreak battle
- After days of soaring infections, the southern Chinese city which has been in lockdown since Monday records just 7 new cases
- Regional party chief says strict measures are working and pledges to control the outbreak in one incubation period
One person in Shenyang, in the northeastern province of Liaoning, also tested positive but has yet to show any symptoms, and was included in the recorded cases as of Wednesday.
Baise, in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region near the Vietnam border, had reached “the most critical and urgent time window” to control the outbreak, regional party chief Liu Ning said on Wednesday.
The town has been under strict lockdown since Monday, with 3.6 million residents banned from leaving home, except for mass testing, unless they hold permits as essential workers. Schools are shut, public transport suspended and most businesses closed.
Speaking at an outbreak control meeting, Liu affirmed the effectiveness of the measures and pledged to control the epidemic within “one incubation period”.
“All the control measures must be implemented without any compromise to achieve the confirmed cases ‘peaking and reaching the floor’ as soon as possible. [We] are striving to control the outbreak within one incubation period, and win the war of annihilation in the prevention and control of the epidemic in Baise,” he said.
Liu said the region needed to take advantage of the window period – to speed up testing and contact tracing, as well as step up control in neighbourhoods and medical treatment – to flip the situation with “most decisive decisions, fastest actions and most effective measures”.