Relevant data show that since the epidemic in 2020, there have been 24 confirmed cases in Liuzhou in the past three years except asymptomatic infected people. Netizens ridiculed that this is a "city surrounded by viruses", and some even attributed it to "the credit of snail powder".
What makes netizens pay more attention is that it is reported that Liuzhou is one of the few cities in China that does not carry out large-scale nucleic acid, but only does nucleic acid in hospitals.
165438+1On October 29th, the relevant staff of Liuzhou Health and Health Commission responded that "the epidemic situation in Liuzhou has been relatively stable, and no large-scale nucleic acid screening has been conducted for all staff."
A staff member of Liuzhou Epidemic Prevention and Control Headquarters confirmed to China Newsweek that the local nucleic acid detection points open to the public are mainly hospitals and community health centers. However, Liuzhou is not without nucleic acid testing institutions outside hospitals or CDC.
Nucleic acid testing is mainly in hospitals.
"Do you dare to believe that if I didn't need a nucleic acid certificate by train, I wouldn't have done nucleic acid testing?" A netizen in Liuzhou said on Weibo. In view of the sharp contrast with many cities, some netizens even described Liuzhou as a "utopia under the epidemic".
In fact, it is not without the experience of Liuzhou full-time nucleic acid detection. It is understood that the last serious epidemic in Liuzhou was in June 65438+1October 65438+July this year, when there were 2 new cases of asymptomatic local infection in Liuzhou. Affected by this, many schools and kindergartens in Liuzhou issued suspension notices, and Liuzhou People's Hospital once suspended general outpatient and self-funded nucleic acid testing and sampling services.
Liuzhou epidemic data. Baidu (the world's largest Chinese search engine)
"June+10 in 5438 is an epidemic that has a great impact on Liuzhou this year. At that time, my community, community and unit informed me to go to the nucleic acid testing point for investigation in time. " A Liuzhou citizen recalled.
A local catering practitioner told China Newsweek that there are sampling points for nucleic acid detection in crowded places in Liushi, and local people need to wear masks and hold green codes when entering and leaving public places and taking public transport. He said that he has been testing every three to five days for a long time.
As for the establishment of local nucleic acid detection points, hospitals and community health centers are the main ones. Many local residents in Liuzhou confirmed this to China Newsweek.
It is understood that Liuzhou is not completely without other nucleic acid testing institutions. According to the summary of the survey results of nucleic acid testing laboratories published by the Municipal Health and Health Commission in June this year, there are 29 nucleic acid testing laboratories, of which Guangxi Northam Medical Laboratory is not affiliated to hospitals or CDC.
The laboratory is owned by Guangxi Northam Inspection and Testing Co., Ltd. According to the investigation, Guangxi Northam Inspection and Testing Co., Ltd. was established on 20 19, and its business scope covers clinical inspection services, basic medical research services, clinical medical research services, preventive medicine and hygiene research services, and pharmaceutical research services.
The staff of the company said in an interview with the media: "We do not participate in nucleic acid screening, nor do we set up nucleic acid sampling points, but we will send nucleic acid samples from some hospitals to our laboratory for testing."
"It is indeed voluntary to go to the hospital at our own expense, and there is no need to do it, but we are only managed in an orderly manner and not loose. Public places will check the health code, and asymptomatic and new ones will be isolated and observed according to regulations. " A Liuzhou citizen said on social media.
The staff of Liuzhou epidemic prevention and control headquarters also said that the epidemic prevention and control in Liuzhou was strictly implemented in accordance with Guangxi policies. Now you must have a 48-hour negative nucleic acid test certificate to go to Liuzhou. After landing, it is necessary to conduct home isolation or centralized isolation according to relevant prevention and control policies.
Liuzhou CDC releases the latest Health Management Instructions for People Entering Liuzhou every day. The updated content of165438+1October 30 shows that people who have lived in counties with local epidemics in all areas outside Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region within 7 days must have a 48-hour negative nucleic acid test certificate.
Among them, people who enter the high-risk area of Willow will receive 7 days of home isolation medical observation, during which they will be managed by red team and not allowed to go out. Do not have the conditions of home isolation, centralized isolation medical observation.
For non-high-risk areas outside the area, after the "landing inspection", the "three-day three-inspection" was implemented to carry out five-day home health monitoring. On the fifth day, 1 nucleic acid test will be conducted. If there is no fixed residence or home health monitoring conditions, centralized health monitoring will be carried out and yellow code management will be given.
The staff of Liuzhou Health and Health Commission said that asymptomatic infected people in Liuzhou are basically imported. "Because we know where the source of the disease is, we will conduct targeted and peer-to-peer investigations." The staff of a local hospital in Liuzhou said, "If there is an epidemic, the hospital will send someone to collect nucleic acid."
Liuzhou's 202 1 budget implementation report shows that the city's financial input at all levels is167 million yuan, which supports the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, such as epidemic prevention and temperature measurement, nucleic acid detection and centralized isolation point operation.
So, is the stability of Liuzhou epidemic related to nucleic acid collection?
An epidemiologist told China Newsweek that there is no direct logical relationship between them. He said that in general, the epidemic situation in a place is not only related to the effectiveness of local epidemic prevention and control, but also positively related to local economic activity and population mobility.
Liu Ding, director of the Disease Prevention and Control Department of the Army Medical Center of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, believes that Liuzhou is not a case, and there may be similar situations in some similar cities and regions. It is speculated that besides the effective local control measures, it may also be related to the local actual situation.
Followed by "out of the circle"
Liuzhou is the second largest city in Guangxi. According to the statistical bulletin of Liuzhou's national economic and social development in 20021year, at the end of 20021year, the city's total registered population was 3,967,900, and the city's permanent population was 4175,300, ranking second in Guangxi's population after Nanning, the provincial capital.
Economically, Liuzhou is also in the forefront of Guangxi. According to the statistics of Liuzhou Municipal Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters of 2022, the city's total GDP was 22721200 million yuan, second only to Nanning, accounting for 65.438+02.04% of the total GDP.
Liuzhou, as a regional central city dominated by industry, ranks first in Guangxi, accounting for 1/4 of Guangxi's total industrial output. It has formed an industrial system dominated by automobiles, machinery and steel, with chemical industry, building materials, food, pharmacy, new energy, new materials, electronic information and other industries coexisting and complete industrial categories. There are more than 0/000 industrial enterprises above designated size in Liuzhou, among which Liugang Group ranks among the top 500 Chinese enterprises and Liugong Group ranks among the top 500 construction machinery in the world.
Liuzhou also owns "national automobile brands" such as Wuling, Baojun and Lapras, as well as national famous brands such as Double-faced Needle, Golden Voice and Hua Hong Pharmaceutical. The snail powder in Liuzhou has become a local characteristic industry.
Prior to this, Liuzhou had attracted much attention from the outside world because of online celebrity products such as snail powder and Wuling "God Car".
It is worth noting that in the first three quarters of this year, Liuzhou's GDP increased by 0.8% year-on-year at comparable prices, and the growth was relatively slow. In addition, it is reported that Liuzhou's debt ratio reached 886.07%, ranking first among all prefecture-level cities in Guangxi.
Some analysts believe that this time, Liuzhou once again "out of the circle" because of epidemic prevention and control. On the one hand, it is related to the relatively stable epidemic situation in Liuzhou, on the other hand, it is also related to the social expectation and the public's strong concern caused by the chaos of nucleic acid testing in many places.
Ma Liang, a professor at the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China, told China Newsweek that the popularity of Liuzhou as a city among network celebrities is related to the expectations of the whole society for epidemic prevention. He said, "Everyone really wants to see a model student, or a model city, so that more places can follow suit and copy."
"Liuzhou belongs to the western region and its economic development level is relatively low. If Liuzhou can do it, can other cities do it? " Ma Liang said. In his view, many cities can "take the lead" in epidemic prevention.
In the first half of this year, Hefei, Anhui Province also became a "network celebrity city" because of the humanized epidemic prevention and control policy. At that time, the city publicized that "people in high-risk areas can come aboveboard", and Hefei's statement won countless praises on social media. Ma Liang said that many people are actually concerned about such an open and inclusive epidemic prevention policy.
It is worth noting that since the outbreak, although the national level and various places have been cracking down, there have been frequent chaos in nucleic acid testing. This is also considered to be one of the reasons for Liuzhou's "out of the circle".
Recently, Shenzhen Nuclear Gene Technology Company, which topped the hot search list, was informed by Lanzhou Health and Health Commission because the staff of Lanzhou Nuclear Huaxi Laboratory, a nucleic acid testing institution, mistakenly entered the list information of individuals with abnormal nucleic acid testing into the negative personnel information package and uploaded it to the work system, so that the personal health code to be shipped showed that the nucleic acid testing was negative.
Before this incident was exposed, this laboratory was repeatedly punished by the administration for violating the rules. Since 2022, at least 10 cases of violation of nucleic acid detection have been investigated and dealt with in China, involving more than one enterprise 1 1, and the cases involved are serious and even touch the judicial red line of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases.
"Relatively speaking, nucleic acid testing in hospitals can strictly limit the monitoring of all links and ensure the quality of monitoring. It is difficult to achieve the rigor of hospital testing by relying on the nucleic acid testing services carried out by external third-party enterprises. " Jiang, a professor and epidemiologist at Fudan University School of Public Health, said.
"Many people who conduct nucleic acid testing have not received special training, and the operation is inevitably irregular." Jiang said to him.
In Ma Liang's view, Liuzhou's practice of "hospitals only do nucleic acids" attracts attention. The core is to let enterprises do nucleic acid testing or let public departments, such as hospitals or CDC do it. He said that relatively speaking, people believe that hospitals and CDC will conduct nucleic acid testing in strict accordance with the corresponding standards; The profit-seeking nature of enterprises will cause some risks in testing.
Expert: Good steel should be used on the blade.
According to Jin Dongyan, a professor and virologist at the School of Biomedical Sciences of the University of Hong Kong, the so-called "virus wandering around" phenomenon in Liuzhou is worth summarizing. He told China Newsweek, "There is such a sparrow now. We should dissect it well and figure out how to better use nucleic acid to detect this magic weapon."
For example, he said that the fifth wave of epidemic in Hong Kong caused by Omicron BA.2 reached its peak in February this year, and the Hong Kong SAR government was in a hurry. It once made a decision and announced that all people would be tested for nucleic acid, but "the most important measure to reverse the situation is to reduce nucleic acid testing and recognize antigen testing".
Jin Dongyan believes that the reduction of nucleic acid detection and the increase of antigen detection are the key to the fifth wave of epidemic turning point. He analyzed that large-scale nucleic acid testing is bound to have crowd gathering and there is a risk of transmission, while antigen testing can avoid crowd gathering. On the other hand, antigen testing is self-collected, and there is basically no investment in medical resources, so the saved medical resources can be used to improve the vaccination rate of the people and the treatment of severely infected people.
He said that the relative nucleic acid test needs to be sent back to the laboratory for testing, and it takes a long time to produce results. The antigen detection time is faster, and the result can be obtained in about 15 minutes. "Now this virus is very fast. If the cycle is too long, especially when the amount of detection is large, it is difficult to achieve early detection, early reporting, early isolation and early treatment. " Jin Dongyan said.
In addition, from the cost point of view, the cost of antigen detection is relatively cheaper than that of nucleic acid detection, which can save money.
Speaking of the accuracy of antigen detection, Jin Dongyan said that relatively speaking, single nucleic acid detection is indeed more sensitive than single antigen detection, but if it is detected for more than three times in a row, the accuracy is very close to that of nucleic acid detection. "Nucleic acid is measured three times a day, or once every other day. Compared with antigen determination three times a day or once every other day, 98% can be detected. " He said.
"Good steel should be used on the blade", in Jin Dongyan's view, the virus amount of infected people can be determined by nucleic acid detection, especially for people with high virus amount, that is, people with Ct value below 15.
The Ct value of nucleic acid detection represents the viral load in the infected person and is also related to infectivity. The lower the Ct value, the higher the virus concentration, and the higher the Ct value, the lower the virus concentration. There is clear evidence that when the Ct value of the convalescent infected person is ≥35, the close contacts have not found the infection. The trial ninth edition of COVID-19's diagnosis and treatment plan stipulates that the infected person can be released from isolation or discharged from hospital after two consecutive Ct values ≥35.
The epidemiologist, who asked not to be named, said that Hong Kong's experience is worth learning from the mainland. He believes that under the new situation of epidemic prevention and control, we should carry out "clinical nucleic acid testing", that is, nucleic acid testing is limited to hospitals, and patients come to see a doctor to determine whether they are infected with COVID-19.
165438+ 1 October 30th and 65438+1February 30th, People's Republic of China (PRC) Vice Premier Sun Chunlan held two symposiums in the National Health Commission to listen to the opinions and suggestions of relevant experts and frontline representatives on optimizing and perfecting prevention and control measures. She pointed out that with the weakening of the pathogenicity of Omicrovirus, the popularization of vaccination and the accumulation of prevention and control experience, China's epidemic prevention and control is facing new situations and new tasks.
In the past few days, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu and other places have explored lifting the blockade and home isolation. In Jin Dongyan's view, this change is going in a good direction, and it is the embodiment of scientific epidemic prevention and precise epidemic prevention. At the same time, he believes that in order to make preparations in all aspects, in addition to improving the vaccination rate and storing drugs, it is also necessary to clearly explain the policy basis and concept propaganda.
Author: Brian Sun