Chinese President Xi Jinping asks for swift containment of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday asked for swift containment of the ongoing COVID19 outbreak which has engulfed almost the entire country and emphasized on the dynamic zero-COVID policy. Xi made the remarks while presiding over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to analyze the COVID-19 epidemic situation.

State media reported he asked local authorities to tighten the vigilance in COVID-19 prevention and control work. China on Thursday reported more than 2600 new covid-19 cases.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan who was on an inspection tour to the worst affected province Jilin from Sunday to Wednesday, said that in Jilin, outbreak caused by the more transmissible BA.2 lineage of the Omicron variant is still at transmission peak and needs concrete measures to curb.

The northeastern Chinese cities of Changchun and Jilin, hardest hit by the



fresh outbreak of COVID-19, have distributed millions of COVID-19 self-test antigen kits to citizens, including students, to accelerate massive epidemiological screening. Citizens who tested positive using the self-test kits should stay put and isolate themselves from their families and report to the local authorities.

At least 13 cities are under lockdown with nearly 40 million residents confined to their homes. Schools and colleges have been shut down in many cities and industrial activities are affected in Shenzhen. Authorities in Jilin have stepped up their efforts to erect makeshift hospitals and isolation facilities for the new cases.

China has updated its diagnosis and treatment playbook for COVID-19, including isolating mild cases rather than taking them to hospitals, changing the criteria for patients to be discharged from hospitals and adding antigen testing for detection.