Coronavirus: officials in Chinese cities including Shenzhen sacked for falling short in fight against Omicron
- Futian district in Shenzhen has sacked eight officials for dereliction of duty in the city’s fight against Covid-19
- President Xi Jinping tells Politburo meeting local officials will be held accountable if they fail to control outbreaks in time
Futian district in Shenzhen, which was hit by a rise in Covid-19 cases, sacked eight officials for dereliction of duty in the city’s fight against the virus.
They include three deputy directors of Futian district government, the Futian public security chief and two of his deputies, as well as the district’s health commission director.
Separately, Gao Yutang, director of Changchun health commission in Jilin province, was fired for failing to sufficiently prepare, mobilise resources and supervise the city’s health authorities to fight against the Omicron outbreak.
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Gao Zhongbao, health director of Jiutai district in Changchun, was also sacked. He was punished for an outbreak in a school in the district and accused of not advising the school to introduce social distancing, as well as allowing the school to hold classes when positive cases began to emerge in the district.
Jilin City in northeastern China is the worst hit of all the mainland cities that have been battling a rise in Omicron cases since the beginning of March.
Xi told the meeting China would press on with its “dynamic zero-case” policy, and ordered local authorities to stamp out transmissions as soon as possible with targeted lockdowns.
He also said local officials would be held accountable if they failed to control outbreaks in time.
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Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Wang Hesheng, deputy director of the National Health Commission, said the slack attitude of some local officials was partly to blame for the rise in cases.
“Some local [authorities] think Omicron only causes mild symptoms and they compare it to flu, and are slack. They have this attitude of ‘let’s take a break’. In all aspects, they haven’t made enough preparations and they have relaxed the requirements on pandemic control and emergency response,” Wang said.
He said the large number of imported cases – from a daily average of 91 in January and February to more than 200 in March – put added pressure on prevention and control efforts. He said the stealth of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron and higher human traffic in late February because of reopened businesses and schools had also contributed to the outbreaks.
China has revised its treatment guidelines to stop treating mild cases in hospitals, although they will still be sent to quarantine facilities.
Mainland China reported more than 4,000 infections – including 2,388 cases with symptoms and 1,742 without – on Thursday. Among the symptomatic cases, more than half were in Jilin City, and 69 local cases were in Shenzhen.
