China will adjust its tactics and will not send minor coronavirus cases to hospitals

Beijing, 16 March According to new guidelines from the National Health Commission of Asia (National Health Commission), people affected by the coronavirus in China should no longer be hospitalized, but should be quarantined in specialized facilities, which implies the adjustment of epidemic control strategies in the face of recent outbreaks. The agency announced last night that only people infected with at least moderate severe symptoms should go to the hospital, based on “a thorough study of the transmission characteristics of delta and omicron strains”. China hopes to ease the pressure on the hospital system facing the resurgence of COVID on an unprecedented scale since it was registered in Wuhan in early 2020, which started the epidemic for the first time in the world. According to China's strategy of “zero dynamic covid”, all infected people and close contacts should be treated or isolated in a hospital or quarantine center. In the current resurgence, the guidance posed a challenge for local authorities such as Jilin (northeastern part), which is facing many patients with mild medical conditions. Of the 1,509 new regional positives registered in the province yesterday, 1,494 people are asymptomatic or suffering from mild symptoms. The Commission also stated that inpatients with a cycle threshold of 35 or more (the higher this number, the less likely they are to infect others) may be discharged, after which 14 days of quarantine are no longer required, but a 7-day “home health follow-up”. Last week, health officials gave the green light for the first time in the home use of rapid antigen testing in Asian countries, which, according to the Commission, will be “a complement to further improve the ability to detect cases early.” According to local media, Jilin Province, where 26 million residents were banned from leaving the border, recently ordered 12 million antigen testing devices. The Commission also mentions “standardization of antiviral treatment” for covid in its new guidelines. These include two drugs that have been approved in recent weeks: Paxlovid from the American company Pfizer and other drugs produced domestically by Brie Biosciences. Despite the scale of regrowth, a study by Lanzhou University, quoted by the local media Global Times, assures that China will be able to control the situation in early April. The researchers estimated that the total number of infected people leaving these outbreaks would be between 24,700 and 45,300. Since the past 1 day, China has found more than 13,000 new cases of coronavirus, of which almost 11,000 were caused by local contagion, which is a lower figure compared to other countries, but high in Asian countries, which are still applying strict zero-tolerance strategies. Diseases caused by SARS-CoV-2coronavirus. According to the Health Commission, since the beginning of the epidemic, 122,456 people have been infected across the country, of which 104,040 have been healed and 4,636 have died. ya/beck/gcf