On Monday, the Chinese National Health Commission (NHC) reported no new local cases of COVID-19, signaling that the country’s efforts over the past month to halt spread of the disease have been successful. Meanwhile, in the US, cases continue to rise at a rate comparable to the winter of 2020-2021, the worst period of the pandemic for the US thus far.
The NHC reported 21 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, all of which arrived in China from abroad, signaling an effective end to the outbreak that began six weeks ago, when seven people infected with the Delta variant arrived in Nanjing on a plane from Moscow.
China has vaccinated a higher percentage of its population against COVID-19 than the United States, but unlike the US, Beijing isn’t relying on vaccines to blunt the spread of the ultra-infective Delta variant, which can in some cases “break through” the vaccine and infect inoculated people.
As Sputnik reported, Beijing quickly began limiting travel into and out of infected cities, and in places where multiple cases were detected, officials ordered residents home and implemented mass testing to track down all possible cases. Meanwhile, warehouse staffers worked overtime to ship daily goods to residents’ doors to help them weather the lockdown. In some cities, residents were tested close to a dozen times.
"Although China's current policy is characterised by a high degree of disruption as well as cost, a suite of effective measures has been established, which I don't think will be abandoned easily," Chen Zhengming, professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford, told Reuters, adding that some of the measures have included "inspections at customs, quarantine, the mobilisation of communities, mass testing, etc, one round, two rounds, and then three rounds - China has grown accustomed to them.”
In all, China’s Delta variant outbreak has been limited to about 1,200 cases, but their spread across 50 cities and 17 provinces presented one of the country’s biggest challenges yet in keeping the population safe from a general outbreak of the virus.
In reporting on the outbreak, Bloomberg referred to China’s success as “a month of draconian curbs,” suggesting the restrictions were overbearing in their application. However, a contrast with the ongoing outbreak in the United States is a testament to their necessity.
On the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website on Monday, the most recent data available, from August 20, showed 157,450 new cases nationwide. The last time the US had that many cases was in late January, as cases declined from their all-time highs in the US of nearly 300,000 daily cases weeks earlier.
That peak was reached because as cases exploded in November and December, US states began imposing new social restrictions, shuttering offices and placing strict limits on indoor interactions that interrupted the virus’ spread, all of which came at a time when many Americans were still working from home instead of commuting to the office. However, new social restrictions in response to the explosion of US cases since early July have been few and far between, with the Biden administration urging Americans to get vaccinated and wear masks.
On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration gave its long-anticipated full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, upgrading it from the emergency use status that has underpinned US administering of the vaccine, as well as the two others in use in the US made by Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. The news was accompanied by a wave of new vaccination mandates by large corporations and government agencies, including the entire US military.
At the extreme “red meat ideology” end, as Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber referred to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-mask crusade, several Republican governors have opposed COVID-19 safety measures to score political points. The situation has created a set of legal showdowns as cities and towns in Florida, Texas and other states with mandate bans flout executive orders in order to keep their residents safe, and the US Department of Education recently signaled it would pursue action against mask mandate bans and other measures as it would violations of students’ civil rights.