With less than one hundred days to go for the Beijing Winter Olympics, China is maximising its efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19, with new locally-transmitted cases at a six-week high.
The Chinese mainland reports 78 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Saturday, with 59 locally transmitted, China Daily reported. China has so far reported 97,080 total infections and 4,626 deaths from COVID-19.
As part of its zero-COVID policy, China has shut down multiple cities, stopped trains and quarantined all of its passengers after finding out that only a single one can been in contact with a COVID-19 patient, and restricted public transport in its capital of Beijing. In a border city near Mongolia, six officials were punished for their “slack response” and “ineffective management” after a COVID-19 outbreak emerged on October 18.
As a result of these heavy-handed actions, Chinese officials are projecting confidence that they can stop the virus in its tracks. China's top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan said the latest resurgence of COVID-19 infections would be contained within a month, Xinhua reported.
But the penalty for non-compliance can be grim. A Beijing lawyer warned on state broadcaster CCTV that those who don’t follow coronavirus protocols could be guilty of a crime punishable by death, the Washington Post reported.
This is not the first time Chinese authorities have warned of the death penalty for those who flout COVID-19 norms. In February 2020, a Chinese court said those who intentionally hide or misreport COVID symptoms could be charged with the crime of endangering public safety, which in extreme cases, could result in 1 years fixed imprisonment, life imprisonment, or death”.
The Beijing police have already initiated 19 criminal investigations into those suspected of violating epidemic-related laws, including a trucker who was caught for forging a negative COVID test.
According to the SCMP, Mainland China has a vaccination rate of 76.2 per cent.
