Covid-19: China points to Omicron and high vaccination rates for rising asymptomatic infections

NHC reports 505 new local infections, including 175 symptomatic cases and 330 without symptoms
Shanghai disease expert Zhang Wenhong says epidemic prevention efforts will be challenged as measures against the pandemic relax worldwide

Coronavirus China

Jack Lau

Published: 8:00pm, 8 Mar 2022

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More than 500 community Covid-19 infections have been reported in mainland China for the second straight day, prompting cities to impose mass testing orders under the country’s zero-Covid strategy.

On Tuesday, the National Health Commission (NHC) reported 505 new local infections – 175 symptomatic cases and 330 without symptoms.

There were 46 new local cases reported in Jilin City and 45 in southern Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong.

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The NHC also reported 243 new imported infections, a high tally by Chinese standards, including 130 that were asymptomatic.

Most Covid-19 infections in mainland China since mid-February have been concentrated in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Guangdong, but since early March the outbreak has been more widespread.

China still maintains what it calls a dynamic zero-Covid policy, which does not aim to eliminate cases for good but to suppress them when they arise with mass testing and severe restrictions on movement.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping said measures to prevent imported cases were a priority.

“Since last year, there were clusters in some regions of the country. Erenhot, Ejina banner, Manzhouli and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia all had outbreaks caused by imported cases,” he told deputies from Inner Mongolia during the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, the Chinese legislature, on Saturday.

“This alerts us that we must never relax efforts to prevent cases from the outside.”

In Hong Kong, 43,190 local cases were reported on Tuesday in the city’s worst Covid-19 wave of the pandemic, as the local government struggled to find beds for patients.

Public transport and supermarkets were operating at reduced services because of labour shortages caused by mass infection of workers.

Of the 330 local asymptomatic infections reported in China, 129 were reported in Qingdao, in Shandong province in China’s east.

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Laixi, a county-level city of 720,000 in Qingdao, has completed its second citywide testing sweep. Qingdao authorities said 62 positive results were returned from more than 580,000 tests.

“We will strictly implement control measures on key groups of people, such as those who tested positive in the nucleic acid test, their close contacts and secondary close contacts,” Qingdao deputy mayor Sui Ruwen said.

Primary and secondary schools in Laixi closed on Monday, with pupils to learn online until the expected reopening on April 1.

Qingdao’s health commission said 75 cases were reported in the city in the 12 hours to noon on Tuesday, adding to the NHC official figures reported on Tuesday. National totals refer to cases recorded the previous day.

The Qingdao government has blamed the high proportion of asymptomatic infections on the Omicron variant, which is more infectious but generally induces less severe symptoms than previous variants.

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Chinese authorities have attributed the large number of infected patients not showing symptoms to the country’s high vaccination rate. At least 1.2 billion people in China – over 85 per cent of the population – have had at least two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

In January, prominent Chinese epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said a vaccination rate of more than 83 per cent represented theoretical herd immunity, but he called on the population to go further and get booster shots.

But external factors also affect China’s bid for zero-Covid.

“Case tracking in Shanghai shows that our epidemic prevention efforts will face a greater challenge as measures against the pandemic relax worldwide,” Zhang Wenhong, a well-known Shanghai-based infectious diseases doctor, wrote on Weibo on Monday.