On January 3, the city of Shijiazhuang, where the outbreak is most serious, entered a state of war, immediately implementing closed-loop management in all communities and rural areas and opening a full-scale nucleic acid testing mode. Our reporter Xiao Yibing interviewed several people in Shijiazhuang, let’s hear what they have to say.
The Hebei Provincial health Commission released a news release on January 6 saying that from 0-24 hours on January 5, there were 20 new confirmed local cases in Hebei Province, including 19 cases reported in Shijiazhuang. In addition, Hebei province added 43 new cases of local asymptomatic infections, with Shijiazhuang reporting 41 cases. Following Shijiazhuang’s entry into a state of war, Hebei Province also declared an immediate state of war on the evening of January 5.
As the hardest hit area of the epidemic, the Shijiazhuang municipal government held a press conference on January 5 on the prevention and control of the epidemic. Shijiazhuang Vice Mayor Meng Xianghong announced that from January 6, the entire area of Gao Cheng District will be adjusted to a high-risk area, the city’s highways will be closed, passenger stations will be temporarily suspended, and train and airline passengers will need to leave the city with proof of negative nucleic acid within 72 hours.
Shijiazhuang city government spokesman Wang Jianfeng said, expanding the scope of nucleic acid testing from Gaocheng District to the city: “Tomorrow (January 6) will also start full-scale nucleic acid testing across the city to ensure early detection, early reporting, early isolation and early treatment.”
Shijiazhuang CDC director Lu Fei said at the conference, has collected the first confirmed case of pharyngeal swab samples sent for testing, the source of infection is still not judged for the time being. 6, Vice Mayor Meng Xianghong announced that the city has accumulated 2 million people tested, with seven new positive samples.
According to the flow investigation, the spread of the epidemic is related to the gathering activities of villagers, concentrating the outbreak in the Gao Cheng district of Shijiazhuang. According to the life trajectory of the first confirmed patient in Hebei province, the patient had attended a wedding and a gathering, and the itinerary of other confirmed cases was similar. In an interview with Chinese media CCTV News, Feng Zijian, deputy director of the Chinese CDC, said that the virus in Hebei province is still an imported virus from abroad, most likely from Europe, and that the virus has been spreading covertly for some time.
Mr. Zhou, who lives in Shijiazhuang’s Qiaoxi District, told the station that due to the concentration of the epidemic, Gao Cheng District is now under closed-loop management and has not affected other urban areas too much for the time being: “We are now here to stop express delivery and take-out, but there is no difficulty in purchasing life, the big supermarkets are currently open, only the community has been closed for the last three days because of comprehensive nucleic acid testing, each. These three days the situation is most severe, high-speed access are closed, the community is only allowed to stock up in the vicinity. There is a 24-hour supermarket in front of the company has increased prices, but the prices of the Yonghui supermarket has not changed.”
Mr. Zhou said that since the country was under strict closure at the beginning of last year when the epidemic was at its peak, Shijiazhuang entered a state of war this time and most citizens were prepared for it: “The atmosphere is fine, not overly nervous. Relatively speaking, since the beginning of the epidemic in Gaocheng District, companies and individuals have started to cope with it, and it seems that they are all still somewhat prepared.”
Ms. Wu, who lives in Gaocheng District, said in an interview with the station that the villages and towns in Gaocheng District are now under lockdown management and strictly disinfected, but the residents are generally more stable: “The nearby high-speed national highway is set up with barriers to persuade vehicles to return. Most of the residents are prepared, I went to the supermarket after work on the 4th, the public has begun to stockpile food and daily necessities. As far as I can see, except for not being able to go to work, there is not much impact on life.”
An anonymous person who was in Shijiazhuang on business told the station that their group had to be temporarily trapped in a hotel because of the aggravation of the epidemic in Shijiazhuang. Their travel was not restricted because they were not in a medium-high risk area: “More than 5,000 wards, each with door-to-door testing, but we had to make our own appointments to go to the hospital for testing, with very few buses and cabs in operation. In the past two days, in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, the district focused on monitoring and controlling access, we can still travel after the test is fine, but it seems that people in high-risk and medium-risk areas can not get out.”
The anonymous person said that the hotel they are in still provides meals normally and the gym and bar are also in operation as the city-wide take-out delivery service is stopped: “The bus terminal is closed, but we are okay by high-speed rail and can leave the city with the negative nucleic acid report done after the 6th.”
Shijiazhuang Bus Terminal announced on January 6 that all online tickets purchased from the 6th to the 16th will be returned in the same way in 1-5 working days. In addition, upon inquiry by our reporter, tickets for passenger trains from Shijiazhuang area and Xingtai to Beijing area are no longer available, but tickets for southbound trains are still remaining.
In addition, according to an article published online by the China CDC Weekly (English) on January 6, genetic sequencing of samples from two new cases of crown pneumonia in Shijiazhuang and Xingtai on January 2 revealed that the virus strain was different from the strains found in recent outbreaks elsewhere in China and was not the mutant virus found in the UK and South Africa, but was similar to the Russian genome sequence uploaded in July.
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