How-to China: How did Shenzhen beat Omicron?

Q: Did the expert group judge close contacts based on big data? Or was there other evidence?

Lu: It was based on detailed epidemiological investigation and big data.

But sometimes, it's hard to precisely identify the space and time for close contacts. For example, in a large shopping mall, a closed environment, one positive case was found and we could confirm when the person had been to the shopping mall, but it is hard to identify his close contacts.

People within two meters of the positive case should be identified as close contacts. But if the scope is enlarged to tens of meters, there would be too many close contacts.

If close contacts are not identified precisely, it could lead to a waste of resources. When thousands of people are isolated, what about follow-up services? Are there enough hotel rooms?

In addition to judgement of experts, information transparency is also needed. You need to tell the public at that period there was a positive case. Then if there were some people at the place at that time, they should proactively carry out self-isolation and take nucleic acid tests.

Q: Shenzhen has set up 1,530 service areas for nucleic acid tests, and lots of sites for people to take tests. When did that start?

Lu: Besides the fever clinics and pharmacies, Shenzhen has set up a supervision system covering people, things and environment (including sewage).

The city has established testing sites by the standard of one site per 30,000 people and offered online services for people to find sites. The city had nearly 7,000 testing sites at the peak, and around 30,000 medical workers operating them.

Q: Does Shenzhen have a backup plan for a situation where thousands of people are infected each day, like Shanghai?

Lu: Shenzhen has set up standardized testing sites, and strictly followed the rules of people scanning health codes at public places. A lot of measures have helped us discover infected people quickly, which would make large scale infection unlikely.

Q: You talked about the normalization of nucleic acid tests. Does this mean residents must take tests every day? 

Lu: The normalization is because some places across the country have not brought the epidemic under control, and infection clusters may happen still. Through the tests, Shenzhen would discover the cases in time.

We can ensure the dynamic zero-COVID strategy eliminates cases in a short time.

Q: How can the supply of essential goods be secured during the closed-off management period?

Lu: In our locked down, controlled and precautionary zones, the civil servants of the government departments are transformed into on-the-spot volunteers. 

If there is a place heavily impacted, volunteers from other places would go to help. We mobilized grassroots civil servants and Party members.