Health minister Ma Xiaowei told the state news agency Xinhua on August 16 that authorities planned even stricter measures intended to spot incursions of the virus from abroad more quickly. Still, China has proven its ability to keep the pathogen at bay, and it has vowed to continue to safeguard its people, regardless of the effort or expense. That’s becoming a global consensus, driving decisions to learn to live with the virus in countries from Singapore to Australia and New Zealand that previously sought to eliminate it. More infectious variants and their rampant spread are making the eradication of Covid-19 less and less likely. Investment banks from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Consumption and manufacturing slowed in July, with further weakness expected for August when infections peaked and measures to control them intensified. The containment-at-all-costs approach is weighing on the world’s second largest economy. Yet many of them have since seen their disease moderate. In the viral hotspot Jiangsu province, critical cases at one point rose to as many as 18, raising fear that the country could soon report fresh Covid fatalies in more than six months. In the U.S., which has never succeeded in containment, relying instead of vaccination, booster shots are likely to roll out in a few months to shore up protection against its delta resurgence.Ĭhina is also keeping all those infected alive so far. In comparison, cities in Australia have undergone as many as six lockdowns, keeping more than half of the country’s 26 million people confined to their homes, without gaining control of the virus.
Still, China eliminated the virus in about a month, roughly the same time it took to quell previous outbreaks, like the one at the start of 2021 in the northern provinces that totalled some 2,000 cases. Ultimately it penetrated nearly 50 cities across 17 provinces and reintroduced the virus to Wuhan, which had been Covid-free for over a year. The blazing spread of the delta variant across the country became the biggest test of China’s Covid control model. The number of infections dropped to single digits the next week amid tightening curbs. Then it ended, almost as quickly as it began. In less than three weeks, daily cases ballooned to more than a hundred, scattered across half of the nation.
By the end of that week in July, daily infections had climbed to nearly 50, suggesting exponential spread across more than 1,000 kilometers. The next day, there were more than a dozen. More than 200 neighborhoods were labeled high- or medium-risk, triggering sweeping curbs that disrupted lives and businesses.įirst there was one asymptomatic infection at the airport in Nanjing. Most had to remain isolated at home - a rule that was strictly enforced - before returning to work and school. Other regions introduced sweeping curbs, from barring entry for people from high risk areas to asking them to cut short vacations. It also cut off trains and flights from hotspots around the country, even though the city ultimately posted fewer than 10 infections in the delta flareup. The Chinese capital of Beijing at one point was sealed to any other place with even just a single case. In the city of Yangzhou, some people were infected while waiting in line to get swabbed. In all, more than 100 million tests were administered. Local authorities checked their populations repeatedly, around a dozen times in one city alone, to ensure every last infection was caught. Here’s what happened between July 20, when news emerged of a cluster of infections among airport cleaning staff in the eastern city of Nanjing, and August 23, when China once again reported zero cases.Ĭhina took testing to an unprecedented level during this go-round.
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