China: Highest two-year COVID-19 cases

China reported 402 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, almost twice as many as the previous day, as the highly contagious Omicron strain now affects one-third of the country’s provinces.

These pollutants are unmatched by balance sheets in the rest of the world, but have been at China’s high levels since March 2020.

The country where the coronavirus was discovered in late 2019 is observing the Zero Kovid approach, which has helped curb the epidemic quickly, but comes at a high social and economic cost.

As soon as a case appears, the authorities usually impose large-scale strict control measures and conduct massive and repeated screenings of the population.

However, this approach raises questions about the feasibility of such a strategy. In his annual address to parliament, Premier Li Keqiang said on Saturday that China should “continuously optimize” its actions against the epidemic.

More new cases were reported Thursday in the port city of Qingdao (east) overlooking the Yellow Sea, along with Jilin (northeastern) province on the North Korean border.

Despite the resurgence of the epidemic, local authorities seemed to have taken a more moderate approach.

Jillin’s unnamed capital did not thus decree detention, but ordered its inhabitants to refrain from unnecessary travel.

In the case of Qingdao, only residents of areas where Omicron cases have been found are currently being screened.

In October 2020, after a few cases appeared, the metropolis tested all of its 10 million residents.

Most recently, authorities imposed a tough detention on 13 million people in Zion (north) in December.

This month’s lockdown is the longest and most widespread in China since the capture of Wuhan (center), the first center of the epidemic from January to April 2020.

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