194 confirmed cases in 6 days, why is it Manzhouli? How much pressure do we have from overseas imports?

According to the sixth press conference held by the Manzhouli City COVID-19 Prevention and Control Headquarters at 16:00 today (2nd), from 0:00 to 12:00 on the 2nd, 11 new confirmed cases were reported in Manzhouli City, and a total of 194 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported so far. Among the newly confirmed cases, 8 tested positive in nucleic acid tests during centralized isolation and were diagnosed as confirmed cases of COVID-19 after consultation by the expert group. 3 tested positive in nucleic acid tests of people in the closed-off area and were diagnosed as confirmed cases of COVID-19 after consultation by the expert group.

All the above-mentioned persons have been transferred to the port medical treatment hospital for isolation and treatment. Epidemiological investigation is in progress. As of 12:00 on the 2nd, a total of 6,086 close contacts and 2,787 secondary close contacts have been identified.

Manzhouli City has decided to carry out the fifth round of nucleic acid testing for all residents starting at 8 a.m. on December 2. Individuals who evade, deceive, or refuse to undergo nucleic acid testing and cause the spread of the epidemic will be held accountable in accordance with the law.

On December 1, staff members took nucleic acid samples from residents at the nucleic acid sampling point in Juyou Community, Manzhouli City. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Zhipeng

Manzhouli: The spread is extremely fast

The biggest feature of this round of epidemic in Manzhouli is its rapid spread.

According to Xu Hongzhi, Party Secretary and Director of the Health Inspection Commission of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the outbreak was caused by a new source of imported cases from abroad, and it spread quickly and widely. When the infected cases were discovered, the outbreak had already spread. The "rapid growth" was because there was already a certain "stock" of cases, and now these "stocks" are being "dug out".

As of 14:00 on December 1, Manzhouli has completed three rounds of nucleic acid testing for all residents, and the fourth round was launched at 8:00 this morning. It is worth noting that Manzhouli detected 60 positive samples in the first round of large-scale nucleic acid testing on November 29, and another 57 positive cases were screened today.

Image source: CCTV News

This shows that in addition to the currently confirmed cases, there may still be "slippery fish" in the process of large-scale nucleic acid testing. Some people may be in the stage where they have been infected but have not yet begun to show symptoms, and some patients may be asymptomatic, which brings certain difficulties to nucleic acid testing.

Experts judge: The number of confirmed patients will increase

The first cases reported in this outbreak, Case 1 and Case 2, were stevedores of a company in Manzhouli. They both had possible contact with imported goods. The official preliminary analysis showed that the outbreak spread through "human-to-human and object-to-human transmission". On November 30 alone, Manzhouli accounted for 72 of the 91 newly confirmed local cases in Inner Mongolia, and there was a spillover phenomenon, resulting in 2 cases related to other cities.

Xu Hongzhi said in an interview with CCTV earlier: "The Manzhouli epidemic was detected among workers engaged in the handling of imported goods through regular 'all-inclusive testing'. After expert analysis and judgment, we realized that the situation was still quite serious, so we promptly launched nucleic acid testing for all employees.

From the current situation, 60 positive cases were found in the first round of nucleic acid testing for all staff, and the results will be released in the second and third rounds. These results show that the epidemic is quite serious and the situation is quite complicated. In the future prevention and control process, efforts will be intensified in this regard to find out potential positive cases through nucleic acid testing as soon as possible... According to the experts' judgment, the number of confirmed patients will increase. "

Why Hulunbuir? Why Manzhouli?

On November 30, the Manzhouli Municipal COVID-19 Prevention and Control Command held a press conference to announce the source of the epidemic.

The press conference introduced that the full genome sequences of the viruses involved in the first three cases of this outbreak had low homology with previous domestic outbreaks, suggesting that this outbreak was caused by a new source of importation from abroad. All three cases may have been exposed to imported goods. After a large number of visits, investigations, and judgments, and taking into account the national disease control virus testing and gene sequencing, it is preliminarily analyzed that the Manzhouli outbreak was caused by the virus carried by imported goods from abroad, which spread through "human-to-human and object-to-human" transmission.

On the same day, Cui Gang from the Disease Control Bureau of the National Health Commission introduced at the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council that the results of viral genome sequencing showed that this outbreak was not related to previous local outbreaks and was a new outbreak caused by imported cases from abroad. At present, the outbreak has occurred in a small range of families, residential communities and schools in Manzhouli City. The risk of community transmission of the local epidemic is relatively high, and the investigation of risk personnel who have flowed out is underway.

It is understood that Hulunbuir borders Russia to the north and northwest with the Ergun River as the boundary, and borders Mongolia to the west and southwest, with a border line of 1,733.32 kilometers with Russia and Mongolia. Among them, Manchuria is China's largest land port city and an important hub on the Eurasian land route, with the reputation of "Window of East Asia".

As a border city, Manzhouli has been under pressure to prevent and control imported cases from abroad. It is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of domestic and foreign goods, while preventing the challenges brought by imported cases from abroad to epidemic prevention and control.

How great is the pressure from overseas imports?

We have compiled four representative border or port cities across the country since the beginning of 2021: Manzhouli, Ruili, Shanghai, and Dalian.

These four cities are land, sea and air ports, and are under great pressure from overseas imports. In the past year, there have been multiple rounds of epidemics. The source of transmission is highly related to overseas imports, specifically cold chain goods, overseas imported viruses at airports, and illegal border crossings.

The data in the figure is as of 24:00 on November 30.

This is not the first time that Manzhouli has had a "battle" with the new coronavirus. At almost the same time last year (November 21, 2020), a sanitation worker in Manzhouli and his wife were tested positive for the new coronavirus nucleic acid during a routine checkup before hospitalization.

In this round of epidemic, Manzhouli reported a total of 28 confirmed cases. The number of infections continued to rise. It was not until December 25, 2020 that the number of local confirmed cases was zero.

The whole genome sequencing results at that time showed that the new coronavirus belonged to the L genotype European family branch I (B.1.1 branch), and comparison showed that it was highly homologous to the Russian epidemic strain, suggesting that the two cases in Manzhouli City were caused by imported cases from abroad.

Under the premise that the epidemic continues for a long time, how to carry out targeted screening and prevention work, while minimizing the losses in trade, is the focus that Manzhouli needs to pay attention to in the future.

Shanghai: The largest number of imported cases

On September 29, Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Health Commission, said that Shanghai had the most imported cases among provincial cities. The three local outbreaks in August were also related to ports, and the number of flights and personnel entering the country every day accounted for more than one-third of the country, the air cargo volume was close to one-half of the country, and the container volume ranked first in the world, so the pressure to prevent imports from abroad was extremely high.

Throughout 2021, Shanghai has had sporadic cases of imported cases from abroad, but they were quickly discovered and the source of transmission was blocked in time. However, the outbreak in August lasted for more than 20 days and was caused by foreign cargo plane staff at Pudong Airport being infected with the imported virus.

As of now, there are 61 confirmed cases of imported cases from abroad in Shanghai, and 64 confirmed cases in total; the cumulative number of confirmed cases of imported cases from abroad is 2,469, and the total number of confirmed cases is 2,853, accounting for 86.5% of the cumulative confirmed cases in Shanghai.

According to data from the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, we counted the number of new imported cases from abroad in Shanghai each month from May to November this year, and found that its changing trend was consistent with the time nodes of the epidemic outbreak (August and October).

An important prevention and control measure taken by Shanghai is to fuse out relevant international scheduled passenger flights.

According to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China, as of December 1, Shanghai had issued a total of 23 circuit breaker orders, mainly concentrated in January, May, August and October. It can be seen that the response and handling of the epidemic was very quick.

Dalian: Cold chain transportation has a big impact

Since October this year, the international epidemic has rebounded. Cold chain transportation has always been a challenge for China to prevent the import of foreign countries, especially for Dalian, which undertakes nearly one-third of the country's cold chain cargo storage.

On November 23, the Dalian Municipal Government announced that after more than half a month of epidemic prevention and control, the current round of Dalian epidemic has been brought under control. However, more than 300 local confirmed cases in 10 days is still a shocking number.

According to epidemiological investigation, the first confirmed case of this round of epidemic was an employee of the first designated cold storage in Zhuanghe City. The epidemic spread rapidly through four different transmission chains, and Zhuanghe City (a county-level city in Dalian), which has as many as 75 cold chain logistics companies, became the hardest hit area in Dalian.

Information source: Dalian Health Commission

In fact, this is the third cold chain-related outbreak in Dalian.

In July 2020, an epidemic broke out in Dalian, and the first confirmed case at that time was an employee of a seafood processing company. In December of the same year, relevant departments found four asymptomatic COVID-19 infections during routine testing of personnel at Dalian Port Yidu Cold Chain Co., Ltd., triggering another epidemic.

Port cold chain transportation once made Dalian an important hub for transshipping goods from South Asia, North America, Europe and other places, and served as a maritime gateway for the Northeast Asian economic zone to enter the Pacific Ocean and face the world. However, the repeated outbreaks of the epidemic have also caused Dalian's cold chain industry to fall into the storm of public opinion, and at the same time, Dalian's industrial development and economy have suffered heavy losses.

According to data from the Ministry of Transport, Dalian is the largest port for importing cold-chain aquatic products in the country. In 2019, it ranked first among all ports in terms of aquatic products, bulk aquatic products, and transshipment of aquatic products. It is also an important national cold-chain warehousing and transportation base, and its port cold storage capacity ranks first in the country.

However, according to data statistics from the Ministry of Transport from January to August 2021, Dalian's aquatic products industry and its related upstream and downstream industries and cold chain companies were hit by the epidemic, its port throughput declined, and container throughput plummeted by 40%.

Moreover, since the second half of 2020, Dalian Port has even seen a backlog of more than 500,000 tons of goods or a situation where it takes up to 40 days to enter the port. Due to the closure of cold storage, more than 200 cold chain companies in Dalian that import, store and process aquatic products have stopped working. Hundreds of thousands of cold chain practitioners in Dalian may not only be facing the impact of the epidemic on their daily lives, but also the dilemma of losing their jobs.

Ruili: The problem of illegal immigration

Since September last year, Ruili, a small border town with an area of ​​less than 1,000 square kilometers, has seen five consecutive outbreaks of the epidemic and has been "closed" four times so far.

Why is it always Ruili? To answer this question, we cannot avoid the keyword of border. Ruili is located in western Yunnan, connected to Myanmar on three sides by mountains and rivers, with villages facing each other. The border line winds for 169.8 kilometers, with no natural barriers, and even creates a landscape of "one village, two countries".

As China's largest inland trading port to Myanmar, Ruili has close trade and life exchanges with Myanmar. According to official estimates, Ruili City, with a population of just over 200,000, has more than 50,000 Burmese migrant workers, who mainly work and live near the Jiegao Border Trade and Economic Zone.

The close exchange of people has also led to another problem that Ruili has always had to face during the epidemic prevention and control process - illegal immigration. The first wave of the epidemic that led to the "lockdown" in September last year originated from a Burmese woman who illegally entered the country.

Xinhua News Agency photo, Ruili (Yunnan), November 17, 2021

The border village of Ruili Nonghuan

Since June this year, when the competent departments in many places issued intensive notices to persuade criminals stranded in northern Myanmar to return, the disease control system in Ruili, Yunnan, has been hit again due to a large number of these people turning themselves in. According to public information, among the 18 new imported cases reported by Yunnan Province on October 1, at least 15 of them had illegally left the country for Myanmar, returned to China and turned themselves in at the end of September, and their nucleic acid tests were positive.

Border prevention remains challenging

Manzhouli and Dalian, which are highly dependent on border trade for economic development, Shanghai, an international transportation and trade hub, and Ruili, a small border town where border smuggling is frequent, all have three common characteristics of the epidemic situation: great pressure from overseas imports, strong local transmission ability, and multi-point outbreaks.

One thing that requires continuous thinking is, in the face of new virus variants that are constantly changing and have stronger immune escape capabilities, how should we do a more targeted job of epidemic prevention to prevent imported cases?

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, CCTV News, Workers' Daily, Beijing Youth Daily-Beijing Headlines, Dingxiangyuan, etc.