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Coronavirus China
ChinaScience

Beijing’s Covid-19 wave unlikely to grow into mass outbreak: China health official

  • CDC’s top epidemiologist says cases will soon be under control through joint efforts
  • But risk is still there and preventive efforts cannot be relaxed, he says

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Mass testing is a central element of Beijing’s efforts to contain Covid-19. Photo: Xinhua
Echo Xie
The wave of Covid-19 cases in Beijing is unlikely to become a large-scale outbreak, according to China’s top health official.
In an online post on Friday night, Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said that when several transmission chains of Covid-19 emerged in April, Beijing took decisive action, mainly high frequency and wide use of PCR testing.

“The change and speed in the epidemic’s development is influenced by the biological characteristics of the virus, but it is determined by the strength and speed of epidemic prevention and control,” Wu wrote on Weibo, a Twitter-like social media platform.

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“The possibility is very low that Beijing’s current outbreak will evolve into a large-scale outbreak.”

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China was struggling to contain its biggest coronavirus outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, using lockdowns, quarantine and mass testing to stamp out transmission.

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China reported 276 new symptomatic cases and 1,796 asymptomatic infections on Saturday, with about 80 per cent of the cases reported in Shanghai.

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