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 reported 78 new confirmed COVID-19 cases on Saturday, with 59 locally transmitted. 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 one year of 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.
