China is back in emergency mode, competing to contain the increase in COVID before the holidays

Beijing – China is rushing to build a massive quarantine camp with more than 4,000 isolation suites in Hebei Province, a region on the outskirts of Beijing, in the middle of a spring. coronavirus epidemic. In the face of a holiday that normally causes the largest mass movement of humans on the planet, authorities have put tens of millions of people under strict closure to try to curb the spread of COVID-19 a year after it first appeared. .

The new isolation center stretches for more than 108 acres on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang City, the provincial capital of Hebei Province, which surrounds Beijing. It will temporarily house close contacts and secondary contacts of patients confirmed with COVID-19 so that they can be kept under medical observation in the face of any signs of infection.

A time lapse video aired by state broadcaster CCTV shows construction teams working 24 hours a day to build the large facility.

“More than 4,000 construction workers worked six days and nights non-stop” to finish the first batch of 606 rooms, and another 1,173 were finished on Wednesday, according to Shijiazhuang Deputy Mayor Meng Xianghong.

All rooms in the quarantine center are about 194 square meters and will have a private bathroom, 5G Wi-Fi and TV, along with desks, chairs and beds, according to state media.

The scenes of the emergency construction project in Shijiazhuang reminded many Chinese of Beijing’s efforts a year ago to build makeshift hospitals in the central city of Wuhan, where the first COVID-19 cases arose. Two hospitals were built from scratch in just 12 days.

But Hebei Province is now the epicenter of the coronavirus resurgence in China. There have been more than 800 cases of local transmission since COVID-19 infections began to rise again in the country in early January. More than 90% of these new cases have been counted in Shijiazhuang.

While the figures are pale compared to outbreaks in the United States, Britain and other heavily affected countries, China it had arisen almost completely of the pandemic a few weeks ago and is taking an aggressive approach to controlling new infections.

Shijiazhuang began a third round of mass testing on Wednesday, with the aim of detecting the 11 million residents of COVID-19 within three days. Meanwhile, the city is closed and residents are ordered to stay home with few exceptions.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan visited Hebei Province this week and visited Shijiazhuang, where he urged swift and determined action to curb the spread of the disease. He called on Hebei regional authorities to learn lessons and, specifically, to suspend religious meetings that have been accused of fueling the current spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, Beijing health officials have confirmed that there are two cases of highly transmissible The COVID-19 variant was first detected in the United Kingdom were detected this week in the capital. And on Thursday the first case of coronavirus transmitted locally in two months to the Shanghai financial center was confirmed.

The outbreak in Hebei, and cases that have appeared elsewhere, have put the Chinese government on the brink of the new lunar year, which is usually seen hundreds of millions of people travel across the country to be with family. The two-week holiday period starts the second week of February.

Tens of millions of people in Hebei, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces are subject to strict blockade restrictions, including some 20,000 people who moved last week from villages outside Shijiangzhuang to centralized quarantine centers.

Officials urge people to avoid travel during this Lunar New Year holiday. Anyone who wants to return home to a rural area of ​​a Chinese city will have to show a negative COVID-19 test result within seven days of their trip, the National Health Commission said Wednesday. Most of China’s 280 million rural migrant workers would normally go to their villages to spend the New Year holidays.

Beijing officials have also said they will extend the mandatory observation period for international travelers entering the capital to 28 days, to help prevent the import of new COVID-19 cases, especially the worrying new variants that are spreading. to other places.

China has also stepped up its vaccination program, with more than 15 million doses distributed as of Wednesday.