Chinanews.com, Beijing, October 24th. Question: The transmission chain of tour groups affects more than 100 people in 11 provinces. Four questions about the current round of the new crown epidemic

  China News Service reporter Guo Chaokai

  According to the National Health Commission of China, 31 provinces across the country and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 43 new confirmed cases on October 23, including 26 in the local area.

Since October 17, there have been many local outbreaks in China, which have spread to 11 provinces within a week.

Data map: On October 23, Yinchuan City, Ningxia, carried out nucleic acid sample collection and testing overnight.

Photo by Yu Jing

  Where is the source of this round of COVID-19?

How to block the transmission chain of tour groups?

Do people need to be vaccinated with the new crown vaccine "booster shot"?

How to deal with the potential risks of the new crown superimposed flu?

At a press conference on the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism held on the 24th, many experts responded to the public’s concerns.

Where is the source of this round of epidemic?

  Since the two couples of the Shanghai tour group were diagnosed in Xi'an on October 17, the spread of the epidemic in local areas has shown a rapid development trend, and within a week it has spread to 11 provinces including Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Beijing.

After the outbreak, the comprehensive team of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council immediately dispatched a working group to 4 provinces including Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia to guide and support local areas in anti-epidemic work.

  Where is the source of this round of epidemic?

Wu Liangyou, deputy director of the CDC of the National Health Commission, analyzed and pointed out that the source of the epidemic is still being traced, and the transmission chain is generally clear. As of 24:00 on the 23rd, 106 of the 133 cases of infection were reported The tour group transmission chain is related, involving 13 tour groups or self-driving tours.

According to the results of the existing virus and virus sequencing, the whole genome sequence of the virus in the case has low homology with the previous domestic epidemic, suggesting that the current epidemic was caused by a new overseas import source.

  Regarding the characteristics of the epidemic, Wu Liangyou said that firstly, the spread is wide. The vast majority of infected people found across regions are related to tourist groups or self-driving. There is a large cross-regional mobility of potentially at-risk personnel and many provinces are involved. There is a risk of further spread of the epidemic.

The second is highly contagious.

The virus in the current epidemic is a delta mutant strain. The high viral nucleic acid load of respiratory samples in some cases indicates that the virus has a large amount of toxin removal and strong transmission, and the risk of recurring transmission among exposed people is high.

How to block the transmission chain of tour groups?

  In order to block the transmission chain of this round of tour groups, cultural and tourism, transportation, customs and other departments have carried out relevant deployments.

Liu Kezhi, director of the Department of Market Management of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that tourist attractions are highly crowded and mobile, making epidemic prevention and control difficult. Various prevention and control measures must be implemented strictly and resolutely to prevent the spread of the epidemic through tourist attractions channels.

  The Ministry of Transport has formulated more than 10 guidelines for epidemic prevention and control in response to different contents of industry management.

At present, there are still more than 25,000 high-risk employees on the front line of ports across the country. They implement management measures such as centralized residence, shift system, and regular nucleic acid testing, strengthen personal protection, and implement a daily health monitoring zero report system.

  In view of the long-term high epidemic situation in some neighboring countries and the continuous increase of foreign defense input pressure, the customs has continued to track and judge the international epidemic situation, and strictly implement policies such as "cargo opening and closing" and "person and cargo separation". Passengers implement key prevention and control and precise quarantine.

Does the "booster shot" need to be vaccinated?

  As of October 23, a total of 2.2 billion 44.727 million doses of new crown virus vaccine were reported nationwide, and the number of people who completed the entire vaccination was 1.067.621 million.

According to public reports, at least 20 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities including Zhejiang, Fujian, Heilongjiang and other regions or regions have initiated the "intensified injection" of the new coronavirus vaccine.

The current round of the epidemic is fierce, and it has also triggered a discussion among the people on whether the new crown vaccine needs to be "enhanced".

Data map: Harbin, Heilongjiang, citizens received the "third shot" of the new crown vaccine.

Photo by Sun Hanlun issued by China News Agency

  In response, Wang Huaqing, chief expert of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization program, responded that domestic and foreign studies have found that with the passage of vaccination time, the level of neutralizing antibodies of the recipients is decreasing, and the protective effect is weakening.

In this case, increasing the number of vaccination shots is a measure to improve immunity and increase protection; currently, there are three inactivated vaccines and one adenovirus vector vaccine for booster immunization in China.

  From an international perspective, some countries have initiated or announced enhanced immunization programs.

The domestic expert group recommends that intensive immunization of key populations be carried out 6 months after the completion of the full immunization process, including customs, border inspections, aviation, isolation observation points, designated hospital personnel, overseas study personnel and other key populations; in addition, immune function is also recommended Low levels include immunodeficiency, and people over 60 years of age are considering boosting immunizations.

How to deal with the risk of the new crown superimposed flu?

  It is worth noting that the current epidemic is in a stage of rapid development, and the number of non-tourism cases has begun to increase.

It is expected that as the investigation and screening of risk groups continues, the number of cases detected in the next few days will continue to increase.

The scope of the epidemic may further expand.

  Winter and spring are the period of high influenza incidence. Will there be a risk of COVID-19 superimposed on influenza in the future?

How should the public take precautions?

In response, Wang Huaqing said that China's surveillance results show that since March 2021, the country's influenza activity has been higher than the same period last year.

Especially since September, the influenza activity level in some southern provinces has shown an obvious upward trend.

Experts comprehensively judged that there may be a risk of influenza pandemic this winter and next spring, and if the new crown emerges again, there may be a superimposed risk.

Inoculation of the new crown vaccine is not a substitute for the flu vaccine. At present, it is recommended that the interval between the flu vaccine and the new crown vaccine be at least 14 days.

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