Coronavirus spreads at lightning speed. To beat the virus, you need to be faster. Shenzhen has once again demonstrated the "Shenzhen Speed" that underlined a former fishing town's transformation into a megacity, this time in fighting the latest resurgence of the COVID infections.
The latest wave of local COVID cases that started Jan. 7 appears to have been largely contained as no new locally transmitted cases had been reported for four days running as of Saturday.
With its speedy containment of the outbreak, Shenzhen so far has avoided a citywide lockdown, enabling millions of people to continue normal work and life without disruptions. The communities that were placed under lockdown have also started to reopen.
The authorities took decisive and swift actions as soon as the first two cases were reported Jan. 7. More than 22.18 million samples were tested across the city from Jan. 7 to Jan. 10. This figure shows the high efficiency of not only the city and district governments but also the medical institutions, testing institutions and grassroots government organizations.
For comparison, the United States conducted 8.15 million COVID tests across the country between Jan. 7 and Jan. 10, data on ycharts.com shows. According to international media reports, the United States has conducted more COVID-19 tests than any other country.
Shenzhen's tech companies have also contributed to improved efficiency in the city's efforts to bring the latest outbreak under control. At the beginning of the local COVID outbreak in early 2020, it took MGI Tech Co., a subsidiary of genome sequencing giant BGI, 80 minutes to extract 192 nucleic acid samples. Now, it takes only nine minutes to extract 32 samples, and 15 minutes to extract 384 samples when high-throughput devices are used, according to MGI.
Genome sequencing plays a vital role in determining the origin of an infection. It took the virus origin tracing team under the Shenzhen Center for Disease Control and Prevention only 16 hours to complete the whole genome sequencing of the first two cases reported Jan. 7. The sequencing results indicated that "patient zero" of the cluster of 16 locally transmitted cases that emerged Jan. 7 was likely to have been infected through exposure to COVID-19 contaminated products from overseas.
Shenzhen has also demonstrated it has a smooth, highly efficient command chain. Government officials, medical workers, community officials and workers and volunteers sprang to action and worked in unison as soon as the first two cases emerged. The grassroots mobilization efficiency is unparalleled: Testing points were swiftly set up, people lined up in an orderly manner and getting tested proved hassle-free. Nucleic acid testing points were almost everywhere. You just showed your test registration QR code to be scanned at the testing site, opened your mouth for a swab and then got the results on your smartphone after a few hours.
The epidemiological investigation teams efficiently traced the close contacts and secondary contacts of newly discovered COVID patients. According to Zheng Qingming, an official with the Luohu Center for Disease Control and Prevention, investigators must obtain the "core information" of confirmed cases within four hours and identify close contacts and secondary contacts within 24 hours.
"Our information collection must be faster than virus transmission," Zheng said. Epidemiological investigators had only about three hours of sleep in two to three days as they raced against time to trace the contacts of infected patients, according to Zheng.
The mass testing, done in several rounds, also successfully led to the timely discovery of the city's first Omicron case, which involved a young woman who is engaged in receiving and delivering overseas frozen chemical reagents.
The timely discovery of initial cases and decisive actions to cut off the transmission links appear to have successfully stopped the 18 cases reported since Jan. 7 — which include a cluster of Delta infections, and two separate Omicron cases — from spreading the virus further.
Shenzhen's response so far highlights the success of China's zero-COVID strategy. Those questioning the cost involved in mass testing and lockdowns as seen in Shenzhen should give a thought to the human lives that may be lost, the disruptions to social and economic activities and the massive aid and stimulus packages needed to feed the population and keep the economy afloat if the virus were allowed to run rampant.
However, despite the initial success, Shenzhen should remain alert as the invisible enemy is still lurking in the dark, ready to strike at any time.
(The author is a deputy editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily.)