(CNN) — Tens of millions of people are in lockdown in China as the country battles its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the early days of the pandemic.
This outbreak has spread much faster than previous waves of less infectious variants, with daily cases soaring from a few dozen in February to more than 5,100 on Tuesday, the highest number since the outbreak in early 2020. in Wuhan.
The figure may seem low compared to other countries, but it is alarmingly high for a nation that has tried to end outbreaks and transmission chains with a strict zero covid policy throughout the pandemic.
A man walks down an empty avenue in Changchun, China, on March 14.
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As of Tuesday, cases had been reported in 21 provinces and municipalities across the country, including the national capital Beijing and other major cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Cases may still be in the thousands, but as of Tuesday 37 million people were in lockdown.
Here’s what we know about the outbreak in China.
How did this wave start?
The cases began to increase at the beginning of the month in some provinces of the country, such as Shandong, in the east; Guangdong, in the south; and Jilin, in the northeast.
By March 6, experts warned that the situation was “serious” in some places, but expressed confidence that “China still has the ability to control it,” the state tabloid reported at the time. Global Times.
Jilin province, which shares a border with North Korea, quickly became a major infection hotspot with a group of universities sparking public outrage online after quarantined students complained of poor isolation conditions. on campus.
More than 4,000 of the infections declared on Tuesday were registered in Jilin. Nearly half of the total infections in this outbreak have come from that province, and cases have yet to peak, officials warned Tuesday.
Authorities and state media say it is still unclear how the first outbreaks started.
However, several factors, such as cases imported from abroad and the prevalence of the omicron variant, have aggravated the severity of the outbreak throughout the country, according to Global Timesciting Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Which variant is spreading?
The omicron variant has driven this increase. One of the reasons cases have spread so quickly and are harder to track is that the symptoms caused by that variant are milder and the incubation time shorter, according to state media.
This highly infectious variant replaced delta as the dominant strain in the country, accounting for about 80% of recent cases, according to Wu told the Global Times.
He added that experts are looking at both BA.1 – the original omicron – and the BA.2, a subvariant which was first detected in January and has been nicknamed the “stealth variant” because at first glance in laboratory tests it can resemble other coronavirus variants.
BA.2 is 30% more transmissible than BA.1, according to early studies in the UK and Denmark. It is currently the cause of one in five Covid-19 cases worldwide, with cases detected in dozens of countries, including the United States, according to the World Health Organization. BA.2 was detected in the Jilin outbreak, according to state news channel CCTV.
It’s not yet clear whether it causes more severe disease, but some studies suggest it’s not likely to lead to more hospitalizations and deaths, in part because it emerged so soon after the original wave of the omicron variant, so many people have protective antibodies, either from a recent infection or from booster shots.
Residents line up for COVID-19 tests in Shenzhen, China, on March 14.
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What closures and restrictions are there?
Five cities, in which more than 37 million people live, are subject to different levels of confinement.
Residents of Changchun, Jilin City, Shenzhen and Dongguan are prohibited from leaving their neighborhoods, except for essential workers and emergency services. Each household can only send one person to buy food every two to three days.
The fifth city, Langfang, went a step further by prohibiting all residents from leaving their homes except for emergency reasons.
Workers carry out disinfection work for epidemic prevention and control in Qingdao, China, on March 14.
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Several of these cities have suspended public transportation and indoor dining, closed schools, and are conducting multiple rounds of mass COVID testing for all residents. Jilin city kicked off its ninth round of testing on Tuesday, with photos showing residents lining up outside in the snow, bundled up.
Jilin province has also implemented travel restrictions, prohibiting residents from leaving the province or traveling between cities within the province.
But these closures also pose a huge logistical challenge for the government, as CCTV reported that the province only has a few days’ worth of medical supplies in stock.
The authorities are now rushing to increase health care capacity in the worst affected areas: for example, by building temporary treatment centers in Changchun and Jilin city, and deploying thousands of soldiers to help with covid control efforts, according to GlobalTimes.
Will China comply with covid zero?
As the increasingly infectious variants – delta and then omicron – spread in 2021, many countries abandoned the strict covid-zero approach to coexist with the virus.
China and its territories, including Hong Kongwhich is also suffering from a serious wave, are the ones who resist the most.
While some Chinese leaders and scientists have hinted that China might eventually abandon the strategy, that’s not likely to happen any time soon, if the current rhetoric about bringing cases down to zero is any indication.
Han Jun, Governor of Jilin Province, got engaged on monday to end all community broadcasts within a week, prompting derision on Chinese social media, with many calling it an empty promise. Others urged him to tackle more pressing issues first, such as shortages of food and other essential supplies.
“Just think what people suffered when Xi’an set out to ‘zero community transmission,'” it said. a comment on the Weibo platform, similar to Twitter.
The Xi’an city was in lockdown for more than a month, from December to January, with some residents complaining that they could not receive food, basic supplies such as menstrual pads and even emergency medical attention, giving an image of local government dysfunction and causing the protest of the population throughout the country.
“It is better to be fully prepared and then gradually [eliminar la transmisión del covid]the Weibo comment read. “If we rush, people will suffer.”
