China’s Covid Czar Defends Policy; Says Strict Measures to Stay
Chinese Official Defends Covid Policy, Strict Measures to Stay
(Bloomberg) --
China’s Covid czar emphasized the need to keep aggressively quashing domestic coronavirus infections early, in order to keep the world’s second-biggest economy largely intact and the country’s people safe.
The country has effectively contained community Covid cases and has managed to limit severe infections, Liang Wannian, an epidemiologist who heads the government’s team of experts in coronavirus prevention, was cited by the Xinhua news agency as saying in an interview on Saturday.
The nation’s strict pandemic prevention measures, in contrast to other countries that now treat the virus as endemic, haven’t hindered its economy, the report quoted Liang as saying. He firmly defended the government’s zero-tolerance approach and called it the most efficient way to protect China’s people, according to Xinhua.
Liang’s remarks are the latest affirmation of China’s adherence to the so-called Covid Zero strategy, which has seen the authorities impose escalating restrictions on people’s movements to smother the nation’s most widespread outbreak since the virus’s emergence in Wuhan in late 2019.
Liang said sticking to Covid Zero doesn’t mean China won’t tolerate a single infection but rather it enables early detection and a swift response to prevent the wider spread of the virus.
Tens of thousands of university students are under lockdown in their campuses in Dalian after the northeastern Chinese city became the latest hotspot of infections. The momentum of the current flareup is slowing and the epidemic is generally “under control,”, the Dalian city government said in a Weibo post on Sunday.
In Beijing, the local government asked people traveling into the Chinese capital to present a negative Covid within 48 hours of entering the city.
Elsewhere, in Shangrao city, the local government issued a statement in response to a complaint from a woman who said she suspected her dog had been culled in her home while she was in hotel quarantine. Workers disinfecting the area had given the animal “non-hazardous treatment” without informing the owner and had apologized, according to the government statement.
The city, in the eastern Jiangxi province, reported two local Covid cases for Saturday, according to a statement from local health authorities.
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