On March 13, China reported almost 3,400 COVID-19 cases for the day, double the number of cases reported the day prior. This forced the country to lock down virus hotspots as it attempts to combat its worst outbreak in two years.
Schools in Shanghai have closed down because of the nationwide surge, and several northeastern cities are under lockdown. Nineteen different provinces are currently battling Omicron and Delta variant outbreaks.
The city of Jilin has been locked down, with hundreds of neighborhoods sealed off. According to local officials, residents of the city have completed at least six rounds of mass testing and have reported more than 500 cases of the Omicron variant.
As of Monday, all 24 million people inside the Jilin province have been placed on lockdown, the first since Wuhan and Hubei during the initial COVID outbreak in January 2020.
“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not robust enough, there is insufficient understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant, and judgment has been inaccurate,” said Zhang Yan, an official with the Jilin provincial health commission. He admitted on Sunday that the local authorities had been lacking in their response to the virus previously.
On Saturday, the mayor of Jilin and the head of the Changchun health commission were dismissed from their jobs, emphasizing the political imperative placed upon local authorities to mitigate the virus cluster.
Yanji, a city of almost 700,000 near the border of North Korea, has been fully closed off and quarantined. Changchun, a neighboring town to Jilin, placed all 9 million of its residents on lockdown on Friday.
For Hong Kong, this is the deadliest COVID outbreak yet. On Monday, the city recorded 26,908 cases and 286 deaths, the highest current death rate in the developed world. Residents are currently observing strict social distancing rules, and border measures are in place. Most businesses will remain closed until late April.
Media reports assert the high death rate is partly the result of the country’s low vaccination rate, particularly among seniors.
Lei Zhenglong, the deputy head of the Bureau of Disease Prevention and Control for the National Health Commission (NHC) has stated that China is currently pushing for the vaccination of seniors, especially those ages 80 and up. According to NHC clinical data, 65% of severe COVID cases in China are in people aged 60 and above, and 65% of seniors with severe cases were not vaccinated.
Note: This article was updated on March 16, 2022 at 9:34 a.m. to include additional information.