Covid-19 in China: Jilin governor confident city’s outbreak can be contained within a week

Officials express confidence that China’s ‘dynamic zero-Covid’ strategy can quickly break the chain of transmissions through mass testing and quarantine
Jilin is now at the centre of China’s worst outbreak since the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan

Coronavirus pandemic

Zhuang Pinghuiin Beijing

Published: 8:00am, 16 Mar 2022

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The governor of the northeastern Chinese province of Jilin has pledged that the outbreak in Jilin City, the epicentre of the country’s latest Covid-19 outbreak, would be contained within a week even as the number of infections topped 3,500 in a single day.

That accounted for half of the total infections reported in China on Tuesday in the largest surge the country has seen since the initial stage of the pandemic in Wuhan.

“We must take decisive and effective measures to solve the problem … resolutely fight the three major battles of full coverage of nucleic acid screening, full admission of positive patients and full centralised isolation of close contacts, and achieve zero cases in Jilin City,” Han Jun, the governor, told an epidemic control meeting on Monday night.

Han’s comments do not mean the authorities hope to totally eliminate infections within a week, but the goal is to ensure than any new infections are among people who have already been quarantined so that it does not spread any further.

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The strategy is in line with the “dynamic” zero-Covid approach first adopted during an outbreak in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province, as China’s approach to the disease evolves.

Jing Junhai, Communist Party secretary of Jilin province, said the province would need to quickly convert schools and stadiums to makeshift hospitals, known as fangcang hospitals.

The city is treating at least 6,645 patients in nine hospitals, including four temporary hospitals which provide a total of 3,200 beds. Three more makeshift hospitals are being set up to provide another 7,000 beds.

Wen Yuankai, a nurse supervising the preparations for one of the temporary hospitals, told China National Radio that the medical staff “know the procedures by heart and everyone follows their routine”, adding that patients could have “confidence” in the care they would receive.

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The city is also getting a helping hand from five other provinces with about 1,000 people arriving on Monday to help with medical treatment, coronavirus testing and transferring positive patients. Liaoning province also provided 30 ambulances for the city.

Those travelling to help include Wan Jun, deputy president of Wuhan University’s Renmin Hospital who was in charge of a temporary hospital after the disease first emerged in the city two years ago.

“We hope to offer guidance to manage the fangcang hospitals well and help Jilin City to contain the epidemic as quickly as possible,” Wan told Guangming Daily.

Residents queue for tests in Jilin city. Photo: AFP

Zhu Huachen, an associate professor with the school of public health at the University of Hong Kong, said she was confident that the epidemic would be contained even though the case number in Jilin was unprecedentedly high.

“I have full confidence in the epidemic control capability in mainland China, even for Jilin with so many cases, because the system ensures that whichever city slips, it will get national help to nail it,” Zhu said.

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“Wuhan was saved from the catastrophic epidemic and Jilin, with thousands of cases but a lot in school clusters, can make it, too.”