Alertness vital to keep virus at bay: China Daily editorial

The Chinese mainland on Tuesday reported 17 new locally transmitted novel coronavirus infections. Eight in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, four in Gansu province, and one each in Guizhou, Yunnan and Shaanxi provinces, the Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Beijing, the National Health Commission said on Wednesday.

Under the national zero-tolerance policy toward domestic infections, public health authorities have quickly implemented emergency response plans, with cities where new cases have been reported having traced and tested the contacts of those infected and sealed off high risk areas.

Thanks to experience accumulated during the nearly two-year fight against the virus, as well as the fact that China has fully vaccinated more than 1 billion people, or nearly 80 percent of the population, with booster jabs being rolled out in many places, we have every reason to believe the outbreaks will be quickly brought under control.

The source of the latest outbreak is not yet known. But given that several border cities have reported infections this month and the travel history of the tour group to which the latest outbreak has been linked, it is speculated that it may have originated in contaminated goods, which passed through one of the land port cities in Inner Mongolia.

This highlights the importance of individuals being aware of the social responsibilities they shoulder to keep the virus away. Everyone should practice good hygiene and adhere to the epidemic protocols.

Encouragingly, the latest case in Beijing was confirmed after the patient, who felt ill on Sunday after a train ride from Gansu province, reported himself to the local health authorities the following day immediately after he heard the news of possible infections on that train, thus winning time for local health officials to act timely to cut the transmission chain of the virus.

It is a people's war against the virus, and it can be won only when all of us band together to fight it. Everyone should remain vigilant and not be lulled into a false sense of security.

Since it has become a new normal for the country to report locally transmitted cases from time to time, public health officials in particular have to always stay on alert.

Yet at the same time they must also refrain from overreacting by taking unnecessarily stringent anti-pandemic measures that could harm social and economic activities. How to keep a balance between the two remains a huge test for their governance capabilities.