Following a fresh surge in the capital Beijing, authorities have decided to begin mass testing millions of residents as part of an unprecedented plan designed to identify and crush Omicron’s stealthy spread. Around 20 million people will undergo three rounds of COVID testing over the weekend.
In Shanghai, China’s most populous city, even a strict lockdown has led to the death of millions of residents.
One thing that is emerging from the current COVID crisis is China’s questionable response to the outbreak. From a surprisingly low death rate to a crippling lockdown, critics are questioning China’s handling of the Omicron wave, which is reminiscent of the country’s shady response during the pandemic’s early days in 2019.
Human cost of zero-covid plan
China largely kept Covid at bay after the first outbreak in 2020. While the world was battling wave after wave, China was relatively Covid-free throughout 2021.
Small outbreaks that did flare up were met with extreme measures such as complete lockdowns or mass testing. While it all came at a human cost and enormous despair, the country was able to avert a major health crisis.
But then came Omicron. Since the beginning of 2022, China’s Covid graph has grown from a few hundred cases to more than 30,000 daily infections.
Despite Omicron’s stealthy nature, China persists with its strict zero-Covid strategy, which has caused dismay and grumbling as more and more people fall into the virus-control trap.
Over the past few weeks, there has also been an unprecedented flood of complaints on heavily censored social media platforms, with residents of Shanghai’s most populous and wealthiest city using euphemisms and posting photos to get around the censors. Huh.
“People are angry, and questioning the authorities for limiting their freedom of expression. This is new in China,” said Daniel, 31.
question on death
Despite the flood of cases in the latest outbreak, China has reported hardly any fatalities.
Shanghai, China’s largest city, has recorded 190 deaths among more than 520,000 infections in nearly two months – a fraction of the rate in outbreaks fueled by Omicron’s version in other parts of the world.
The figures have been trumpeted by the ruling communist party Its strict zero-COVID pandemic approach works as evidence, but experts say data alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
Shanghai, the hardest-hit city in China’s current coronavirus wave, has recorded a mortality rate (CFR) of 0.036 per cent – 36 deaths per 100,000 people infected since March 1.
“If Shanghai had a CFR similar to New Zealand’s – 0.07 percent in its current Omicron outbreak – it would have had more than 300 deaths,” Michael Baker, a professor of public health at the University of Otago in New Zealand, told AFP.
One explanation for the low toll is that China may have been “very strict about its classification of Covid-related deaths”, Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, told AFP.
China’s health commission said its toll includes people infected with the virus who die without first recovering from Covid.
This leaves open the possibility of patients whose underlying conditions are excluded from the increased toll from the virus if they die from those conditions after meeting the official criteria for a COVID recovery.
mass testing strategy
China is one of the few countries in the world that have done large-scale Kovid testing.
While testing is largely voluntary in countries such as India, China – under its zero-Covid policy – mandates every person to be tested for the virus in an effort to contain the spread.
Three-quarters of Beijing’s 22 million people began lining up for Covid-19 tests on Tuesday, as officials in the Chinese capital rushed to stamp out the outbreak and the city-hit Shanghai for a month Postponed the widespread lockdown.
Test sites were set up overnight and early in the morning in Chaoyang in residential complexes and office buildings around the district. Residents and workers were lined up at temporary outdoor stations for a quick throat swab by a worker in full protective gear. The trial is free.
The urgency of the test underscores the importance of finding out how long and how widely Omicron has been quietly spreading across the sprawling city, and working out a way to cut those chains of transmission.
Meanwhile, residents of Beijing have also started stocking up on food and supplies over concerns of a sudden local lockdown.
Since the start of the pandemic, China has launched several rounds of large-scale testing, collecting millions of samples a day.
low vaccine efficacy
The current Omicron-fuelled outbreak in China has also focused on reducing the effectiveness of domestic jabs.
Prabhat Jha, an epidemiology professor at the University of Toronto, said the overall toll from the current outbreak could be “a very large number” because of the large number of under-vaccinated elderly and vaccines with low efficacy rates.
Hong Kong is already battling a high death rate in the Omicron wave due to a large number of illiterate elderly people.
And it is not just vaccinations, but the efficacy of those vaccines that are in question.
China’s indigenous vaccines are said to be less effective than its western counterparts, which may result in reduced immunity.
Efficacy rates are estimated at 50.4% for Sinovac, 79% for SinoPharm and 66% for CanSino while efficacy for Pfizer-BioNTech and moderna 95%, Novovacs at 89% and AstraZeneca at 62-90%.
(with inputs from agencies)