The Chinese government has placed more than 20 million people in lockdown as renewed outbreaks have led to the highest number of daily new cases in months.
China’s National Health Commission has confirmed hundreds of new COVID-19 infections in recent weeks, most of which have been concentrated in Hebei province, the region closest to the capital city, Beijing. Since Jan. 2, more than 600 new positive cases have been confirmed in Hebei, according to the region’s health commission.
Health authorities in China have confirmed roughly 59 new daily cases on average over the past week, the highest rate since early August, according to the Oxford University-run coronavirus tracker Our World in Data. Government officials scrambled into action in the hope of preventing further spread in more populous cities, shutting down three cities in Hebei bordering the capital with a combined population of more than 23 million people.
“Residents and vehicles are not allowed to leave the three cities … unless it’s necessary,” said Xu Jianpei, vice governor of Hubei province.
Some districts of Beijing have also shut down, forcing the Communist Party to postpone its annual legislative conference that typically attracts hundreds of government officials and political advisers every January. The same conference went on as scheduled last year despite the rising threat of the virus. The government subsequently sealed off the city, forcing its roughly 11 million residents to quarantine well into April.
The government has also urged people to follow state quarantine guidelines in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year celebrations beginning on Feb. 12. The Beijing Municipal Health Commission warned on Jan. 11 that the “severe and complicated” risk of “imported epidemics” from nearby cities now under lockdown poses a danger to millions of people as they prepare to travel across the country for annual family reunions.
China is forging ahead with its goal of inoculating 50 million people before the holiday, having already administered more than 10 million doses, according to Wang Bin, an official at the National Health Commission’s disease prevention and control bureau. She further insisted that the epidemic situation in China is under control.
“Meanwhile, we have intensified testing and disinfection on cold-chain imports and transportation vehicles involved in shipping them,” Wang said during a news conference on Jan. 13. “Cold-chain workers are also required to take regular nucleic acid tests.”
Still, a far-reaching vaccination campaign may not be enough to return China to the relative calm observed over the past six months by the start of the holiday celebration. The state-developed two-shot vaccine has proven to be less efficacious than previously reported. Late-stage trials of the Sinovac vaccine in Brazil revealed a 50.38% overall efficacy rate, considerably lower than the 78% efficacy rate reported by Brazil’s Butantan Institute on Jan. 8.
The Chinese government granted approval for another vaccine developed by state-run pharmaceutical company Sinopharm last month once phase three trials concluded. The state-run vaccine-maker deemed the shots 79% effective. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates determined after additional trials that the vaccine was about 86% effective. The UAE was the first country outside of China to approve the vaccine for general use, on Dec. 9, followed closely by Bahrain just a few days later.
But the veracity of those efficacy rates is still in question. The UAE reported the vaccine’s effectiveness before Sinopharm did, and the company has not corroborated the UAE’s findings, according to a report published in the outlet Nature.
“They give no real data. That’s a bit weird,” said Zhengming Chen, an epidemiologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “It’s difficult to tell how well the vaccine works. I hope it is real.”
