Author: Wu Simin
Since July, local clusters of epidemics have occurred in popular tourist cities in Guangxi, Gansu, Hainan, Xinjiang and other provinces.
Compared with other cities where the epidemic has occurred, most tourist cities are faced with the prevention and control problems of large number of infected people, high pressure on passenger placement and high risk of spillover.
A number of interviewed experts in the fields of public health and virology said in an interview with China Business News that people in the scenic spot have high aggregation and mobility, superimposed on the strong transmission of the Omicron variant, and the epidemic situation in countries around China is at a high level. At present, popular cities for summer tourism in China, especially coastal and inland port tourist cities, are under great pressure on epidemic prevention and control, and the probability of new outbreaks is high.
Tourist cities should take various measures to better implement "early detection" and avoid large-scale outbreaks of the epidemic.
How to solve the problem of large-scale passenger placement?
In the face of the local epidemic in the rising period, some tourist cities have adopted temporary global static management measures to reduce the spread of the epidemic and the risk of spreading.
But this also brings the problem of placement of large-scale tourists in the short term.
In Hainan, since August 1, the province has reported a total of 1,507 local positive infections, of which Sanya accounted for more than 80%.
Up to now, the epidemic situation in Sanya is still in a period of high rise.
In order to prevent the further spread of the epidemic, since 6:00 am on the 6th, Sanya will implement temporary global static management; from 6:00 pm on the same day, those who are currently in Sanya, or have a travel history in Sanya since July 23, do not leave the island temporarily, press Regional epidemic prevention and control requires nucleic acid testing, and subsequent arrangements will be determined based on the situation of Sanya epidemic prevention and control.
In an interview with CCTV News on the 6th, He Shigang, deputy mayor of Sanya Municipal Government, said that more than 80,000 tourists were stranded in Sanya.
Not long ago, the largest island in Guangxi, Weizhou Island in Beihai City, also faced a similar test.
On July 12, Beihai reported the first case of asymptomatic infection. Subsequently, the scale of local infections increased rapidly, with more than 450 new cases on the 5th.
From the 13th, Beihai implemented temporary control measures for the main urban area. On the 17th, the Weizhou Island tourist area temporarily closed all scenic spots on the island, and the tourist area adopted regional control, suspending all personnel entering and leaving the village; people on the island did not leave the village unless necessary.
According to the report at the Beihai City New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Prevention and Control Press Conference that day, more than 2,000 tourists were stranded in Beihai.
"From the point of view of the overall local disposal ideas after the emergence of clustered epidemics, tourist cities are no different from other cities. They all start the emergency response immediately, and then do a good job of hierarchical management and control of risk areas and investigation of risk personnel. But for tourism A large number of tourists in the city means that the local area needs to devote more energy to the resettlement of tourists, nucleic acid testing and evacuation," said Wei Sheng, a professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics of the School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Regarding the resettlement of stranded passengers, Wei Sheng said that specific problems need to be analyzed in detail based on the development scale of the epidemic and the supply capacity of local resources.
Among them, the more passengers that need to be resettled, the more test the completeness of the preliminary information collection work, the timeliness of the activation of emergency plans, and the ability to allocate resources across regions and even across provinces.
"Only when tourist cities do a good job in the collection and analysis of tourist flow big data and the communication of policy information changes, can there be enough time for later passenger resettlement work." Wei Sheng, for example, said that with the rapid development of the epidemic, epidemic-related tourist attractions The prevention and control measures and policies may undergo rapid adjustment.
If some passengers who originally planned to return are informed that their flight has been cancelled after arriving at the airport, and they are faced with no car to take when they return to the hotel, and no room to live when they return to the hotel, then the cost of coordination in the later stage will increase, and the epidemic prevention and control will increase. pressure will also increase.
"If there are changes in these prevention and control policies, passengers can be informed in a timely manner through text messages, phone calls, etc., so that passengers can know what to do and adjust follow-up personal arrangements in a timely manner. Digital epidemic prevention and technical means such as big data have made fixed-point resettlement for stranded passengers. I believe that under these more detailed, more accurate and more humane prevention and control measures, passengers will be more cooperative with local prevention and control policies.” Wei Sheng said.
Jin Dongyan, a professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Hong Kong and an expert in virology, reminded that due to the limited accommodation resources of hotels, hotels, and homestays in some tourist cities, it is necessary to prevent the spread of the virus in these hotels and hotels during the stay of a large number of tourists.
"If the risk assessment work of the prevention and control department is not done in advance, and some factors such as poor ventilation and hygienic environment in some hotels, and excessive occupancy in some houses, the probability of cross-infection in hotels will be very high."
Isolation hotels have clear requirements for disinfection and management of occupants. However, when large-scale passengers stay and need to temporarily call reserved isolation hotels, these hotels still need to clear the staff, kill the environment, and then check in at risk. time.
A local disease control officer in charge of quarantine hotel placement in the central region told reporters that when making epidemic prevention and control plans, a considerable proportion of hotels are generally reserved in advance as reserve resources.
These hotels can usually operate as usual. When the normalized quarantine hotels are about to be full, they will notify the relevant hotel owners a few days in advance to stop picking up guests and make preparations for being called up as quarantine hotels.
"It is also possible to do a risk level assessment for stranded passengers, so that passengers who meet the relevant prevention and control conditions can be transferred to other cities through a closed loop as soon as possible or return to the inflow area for isolation. Since last year, the epidemic situation in tourist cities such as Ejina Banner, Inner Mongolia, has been Relevant disposal experience can be used for reference." Wei Sheng said.
How to carry out an orderly evacuation?
Virology expert Chang Rongshan analyzed to reporters that after the outbreak of the epidemic, after the current research and judgment, the transmission chain is unclear, there are many risk sites and risk personnel, and the risk personnel mobility is large. Immediately take off-site isolation, but do a good job of risk assessment locally to find out the risk base.
But at the same time, if the local government adopts temporary control measures, it is necessary to establish nucleic acid detection capabilities and epidemiological investigation capabilities in a timely manner to match the scale of the stranded personnel, so that passengers can complete the risk investigation and assess the risk-free as soon as possible. evacuate.
Lu Hongzhou, president of Shenzhen Third People's Hospital, said that after the outbreak of the epidemic, on the basis of scientific assessment of local epidemic risks, the local prevention and control department should scientifically classify the stranded passengers according to the risk level, and then formulate corresponding measures according to different risk levels. Nucleic acid testing and isolation management requirements, and orderly evacuation of personnel.
Specifically, the risk levels of stranded passengers can be classified from low to high: passengers who have not been to medium and high risk areas, non-intensive, sub-intensive, and green health codes; those who come from epidemic-related areas but are outside the control area, Passengers with green health codes; passengers from medium and high risk areas or close-contact and second-close contact passengers.
Most of the tourist cities that have taken global temporary static control have been classified.
However, for a certain period of time, there are still a large number of tourists stranded in some cities. In Jin Dongyan's view, this may be related to the inability of local nucleic acid testing efficiency to keep up.
He suggested that the method of "nucleic acid + antigen" could be adopted. First, passengers with low Ct value, high viral load in the human body, and high risk of virus transmission could be screened out by antigen, and then nucleic acid testing should be carried out on the remaining passengers to improve the detection efficiency.
In order to reduce the spread of the epidemic during the evacuation of passengers, Lu Hongzhou suggested that, first, checkpoints should be set up at airports, stations, wharves, expressway intersections and other crossings, and the nucleic acid results should be strictly checked for those leaving; Close contacts, sub-close contacts and high-risk personnel who have traveled to other places will be notified in a timely manner, and timely control will be carried out; in addition, local residents of the epidemic are advised not to leave the local area unless necessary.
How to better implement "early detection"?
Jiang Qingwu, a professor at the School of Public Health of Fudan University, said in an interview with China Business News that although the epidemic prevention and control pressure in popular summer tourism areas is relatively high, this does not mean that the local tourism market needs to be completely shut down, but better implementation. "Early detection", once an outbreak occurs, control the scale of the outbreak to a smaller range.
"But at the same time, the recent discovery of large-scale clustered epidemics in many tourist cities also reminds that public health management capabilities need to match the level of local tourism development. This is not only related to the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic, but also to the local tourism industry. Sustainable development is closely related." Jiang Qingwu said.
Jin Dongyan also believes that tourist cities need to achieve the best epidemic prevention and control effect at the lowest cost, that is, tourism and economic development are both balanced.
"Once large-scale human infection occurs and tourists stay for a long time, it will not only increase the possibility of cross-infection of tourists in temporary accommodation, but also damage the building of local tourism brands in the long run."
Lu Hongzhou suggested that for tourist attractions with high mobility and strong aggregation, a more complete emergency response plan should be established and the local medical reserve capacity should be improved.
Among them, in terms of management, tourist attractions should control the flow of scenic spots, strictly prevent people from gathering, open outdoor areas as much as possible, and strictly implement measures such as temperature monitoring and checking "health codes". For closed spaces such as museums, KTVs, and Internet cafes, environmental ventilation should be strengthened. And personnel management, implement personnel information registration, show health code, temperature measurement and other management.
In terms of medical reserves, anti-epidemic materials such as disinfectants, disinfectant wipes, masks, and protective clothing should be equipped. Temporary isolation places should be set up in scenic spots, and emergency response plans for sudden outbreaks in scenic spots should be established to fully implement "early prevention, Early detection, early isolation, and early treatment” work requirements.
In addition, since the current epidemic situation in China's major neighboring countries is still at a high level, Chang Rongshan reminded that for the east and west port cities, the focus should still be placed on "foreign defense import", such as routine testing of key groups such as residents going to sea.