Shanghai, April 14 (BNA) Chinese President Xi Jinping said that China should adhere to its strict policy of “eliminating the emerging corona virus” while the global epidemic is still very serious, promising a permanent lockdown that insistence will win in the end.
China’s policy free of the emerging corona virus, the emerging Corona virus, has led to the closure of millions of people, and has had an increasing impact on the second largest economy in the world, unlike other countries that have canceled restrictions despite the continued spread of the virus.
“We must continue to put people above everything, and life above everything… We must stick to scientific rigor, and a COVID-free dynamism,” Xi’s state media said during a visit to the southern island of Hainan on Wednesday.
“The current global epidemic is still very serious, and we cannot mitigate prevention and control work. Perseverance is victory.”
The coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. The lockdown of Wuhan in early 2020 announced a Chinese policy that significantly limited the spread of the virus for most of the next two years, Reuters reports.
But new outbreaks of the rapidly spreading Omicron variant began emerging early this year.
The center of China’s battle with COVID is now Shanghai’s financial hub with most of its 25 million residents under lockdown.
Shanghai authorities said on Thursday that the daily number of new asymptomatic cases rose again to 25,146, compared with 25,141 the day before. Symptomatic cases increased from 1,189 to 2,573.
But raising hopes of a policy shift, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a guide to home quarantine on its social media page on Wednesday.
Under China’s strict rules, even people with asymptomatic or very mild cases must be quarantined in central facilities, with many people complaining of poor conditions.
The CDC’s guide to home quarantine — in a well-ventilated room stocked with masks, sterilizer and other equipment — has raised hopes that the quarantine rule at state facilities may be relaxed.
But when a social media user asked him in an online comment about who might qualify for home quarantine, the CDC referenced the old rules.
Nor did the authorities in Shanghai give any hint of any change in strategy at a news conference on Thursday.
An official said cases in the city have continued to rise despite the lockdown in part due to a backlog of test results and also because transmission between family members continues.