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China, desperate to control the Omicron variant now sweeping their country, has ordered the lockdown of two more major population centers today - Jilin Province and Dongguan City - following Friday's lockdown of Changchun (pop. 9 million) and yesterday's announced lockdown of Shenzhen (pop. 17 million).
Parts of Shanghai are also under lockdown - and rumors abound about Hong Kong's next move - as China faces their worst outbreak since Wuhan in early 2020.
The Hong Kong Standard is reporting:
Dongguan in Guangdong has been put under lockdown for mass mandatory testing until March 20, following Shenzhen authorities’ decision to impose a lockdown for its 17 million residents Sunday evening amid residents blaming Hong Kong.
All public transportation and dine-in service at restaurants in Dongguan have been suspended from Monday to Sunday.
Dongguan (pop. 7 million) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, located about 50 miles from Hong Kong.
In Jilin Province - whose capital city (Changchun) was placed under lockdown 3 days ago - the rest of the province (an additional 15 million people) is now under similar orders following their latest 24-hour COVID report indicating nearly 900 new local cases.
Jilin Provincial Health Commission's Circular on the Epidemic Situation of Novel Coronavirus
Pneumonia (announced on March 14, 2022)Source: Jilin Provincial Health Commission
From 00:00 to 24:00 on March 13, there were 895 new local confirmed cases in the province (890 mild cases, 4 ordinary cases, and 1 severe case), including 453 cases in Jilin City (including 19 asymptomatic infections turned into confirmed cases). ), 430 cases in Changchun City (including 22 cases of asymptomatic infections turned into confirmed cases), 7 cases in Siping City, 4 cases in Yanbian Prefecture, and 1 case in Songyuan City; 131 new cases of local asymptomatic infections were added in the province, including Jilin City 120 cases, 3 cases in Changchun City, 3 cases in Siping City, 2 cases in Meihekou City, 1 case in Yanbian Prefecture, 1 case in Songyuan City, and 1 case in Baishan City. The above infected people have been transferred to designated medical institutions for isolation and treatment, and the close contacts and sub-close contacts of the above people have been traced and checked, and control measures have been implemented, and their living and workplaces have been terminally disinfected.
At present, the epidemic situation in Jilin is severe and complex, and it is in a critical period of prevention and control. Sun Chunlan emphasized that it is necessary to speed up the screening of infected persons, use a combination of nucleic acid and antigen detection, improve detection capabilities, optimize organization and implementation, and find out the background of the epidemic as soon as possible.
In order to solve the problem of incomplete flow investigation, the flow investigation team should be dispatched to support. Stay at home. For key places such as schools, nursing homes, factories and enterprises, various prevention and control measures must be strictly implemented to prevent the recurrence of clustered epidemics. It is necessary to strengthen the treatment of patients by classification. Ordinary, severe and critical patients are admitted to designated hospitals, and asymptomatic infections are concentrated in Fangcang shelter hospitals, where they are treated with traditional Chinese medicine, intervene in advance to prevent mild or severe cases from becoming mild or severe, and at the same time do a good job of preventing cold and keeping warm, etc. service work.
It is necessary to carry out precise community management and control at different levels and levels, strengthen remote training and professional guidance for down-level cadres, community cadres and volunteers, do a good job in management services, medical treatment, purchase of medicines, and humanistic care, and improve the ability to implement grass-roots prevention and control policies.
Since Friday China has placed at least 50 million people under lockdown, and plans to test everyone in these locations several times. While these tactics brought the original Wuhan virus under control 2 years ago, this time they are facing a far more transmissible Omicron variant.
The next couple of weeks will be critical if Mainland China is to avoid a full-blown pandemic wave.
Stay tuned.
