COVID spread in city ‘preliminarily curbed’

Citizens wait in lines to take nucleic acid test at a testing site near the Shenzhen Economic Daily Building in Lianhua Subdistrict, Futian District. Wang Haolan

The spread of COVID-19 in Shenzhen has been preliminarily contained as majority of the city’s new COVID infections were found among quarantined close contacts of patients confirmed earlier and in key groups, said a municipal health official at a press conference yesterday.

“We still can’t slack off on our efforts in the slightest. The following days are the most critical period to fight the epidemic,” said Lin Hancheng, a senior official with the municipal health commission and the spokesperson of the city’s COVID-19 prevention and control headquarters.

Shenzhen has adopted swift, decisive and effective measures to cope with the recent COVID flare-ups, according to Lin, who asked for residents’ understanding, support and cooperation during the implementation of the measures that have inconvenienced citizens to a certain extent.

Liu Lei, Party chief of the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen, said at the conference that the original version of Omicron, BA.1, spreads more easily than the original virus that causes COVID-19 and the Delta variant. Studies have shown that the Omicron variant is potentially 500 percent more infectious than previous variants.

“The latest COVID resurgence in Shenzhen is caused by the Omicron subvariant BA.2, which is more contagious and dangerous than BA.1,” Liu said.

Liu said according to the epidemic data, BA.2 is 30 percent more infectious than BA.1, which is still widely circulating around the world.

He added that Shenzhen should speed up the screening of Omicron infections, resolutely cut off infection sources and prevent the large-scale spread of COVID.

At the conference, Liu disclosed that there were COVID patients in their 70s and 80s being treated in the hospital. Since these patients have been vaccinated, they have not become severely or critically ill, which reflects the COVID vaccines’ protection.

Liu also called on citizens who still have not received vaccines or booster shots to get inoculated as soon as possible.

Shenzhen reported 28 new COVID infections Monday, with a total of 165 cases reported between Feb. 15 and Monday. The infections were mainly found in Longgang, Futian and Nanshan districts.