The overall epidemic situation in the country has entered a low epidemic level! National Health Commission reported

On January 30, at the press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council, Mi Feng, spokesperson of the National Health Commission and deputy director of the Publicity Department, introduced that during the Spring Festival, relevant departments of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council continued to provide good service guarantees, medical personnel and workers from all walks of life stayed at their posts, prevention and control work was smooth and orderly, and Class B and Class B control measures were implemented and effective.

At present, the overall epidemic situation in the country has entered a low epidemic level, and the epidemic situation in various places has maintained a steady downward trend. With the increase in the number of people returning to the city after the Spring Festival, it is necessary to do a good job in normalized prevention and control of crowded places such as transportation, and insist on personal protection. Rural areas are still the top priority of the current epidemic prevention and control.

Mi Feng said that we must always keep a close eye on key links, do a good job in health monitoring of key groups, and do our utmost to ensure the medical and drug needs of the people. With the increase in the number of people entering and leaving the country, we must continue to monitor the epidemic situation and dynamically grasp the epidemic trend and virus mutation.

The overall operation of primary medical institutions is stable

The number of patients in fever clinics during the Spring Festival was low

Fu Wei, the inspector of the Department of Primary Health Care of the National Health Commission, introduced that primary medical and health institutions are the first line of defense for epidemic prevention and control and medical treatment. During the Spring Festival, they are faced with the situation of increased mobility of personnel and more people returning home. In order to better understand the operation of primary medical and health institutions in various places and the epidemic situation, the National Health Commission insists on the daily monitoring, daily dispatch and daily reporting system of diagnosis and treatment in primary medical institutions. During the Spring Festival, urban and rural primary medical and health institutions have maintained normal operation and provided outpatient services in fever clinics.

Fu Wei said that since the monitoring began on December 21, 2022, the number of visits to fever clinics and ordinary outpatient and emergency departments in township health centers and community health service centers has generally shown a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, and is currently falling steadily. From January 21 to 27 this year, that is, during the entire Spring Festival, the number of visits to fever clinics was at a low level, with the lowest number of visits on the first day of the new year. After that, there was a certain recovery, but it has been lower than the number of visits before the festival, a decrease of about 40%. Compared with the peak on December 23 last year, it has dropped by 94%. On January 27 this year, the number of visits to ordinary outpatient and emergency departments in grassroots institutions was 2.036 million, a decrease of nearly 30% compared with before the festival, and about 44% of the peak of ordinary outpatient and emergency departments on December 29 last year.

The operation of primary medical and health institutions is generally stable, and they can meet the public's needs for fever diagnosis and treatment and other diseases. Fu Wei introduced that during the Spring Festival, various places actively carried out referral and transfer of key groups and critically ill patients, expanded the 120 transfer capacity, increased telephone seats, and formed a non-emergency transfer fleet to ensure the transfer needs of patients. Superior medical institutions have also established a green channel for referral, simplified the referral process for critically ill patients, and ensured timely admission. Overall, the medical treatment and epidemic prevention and control work of primary medical and health institutions during the Spring Festival was stable and orderly.

The epidemic situation in rural areas was generally stable during the Spring Festival

No increase in the epidemic

Mao Dezhi, deputy director of the Rural Cooperative Economy Guidance Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and first-level inspector, said that the epidemic situation in rural areas was generally stable during the Spring Festival, and there was no increase in the epidemic.

Mao Dezhi said that the special working group for epidemic prevention and control in rural areas will continue to pay close attention to the epidemic situation in rural areas, play a good role in responsibility implementation, policy coordination, grassroots mobilization, etc., guide and promote all localities to further establish working mechanisms, consolidate the foundation of mass prevention and control, accelerate the filling of shortcomings, and continuously improve the epidemic prevention and control capabilities in rural areas.

This round of epidemic is still BA.5.2 and BF.7

It is a prevalent strain, and no new variant strain has been found to be imported

Chen Cao, a researcher at the Institute of Viral Diseases of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that monitoring data showed that BA.5.2 and BF.7 were still the main strains in this round of epidemic, and no other dominant virus strains have been detected so far. During the Spring Festival holiday, a total of 1,421 new coronavirus genome sequences were reported from provinces across the country. After analysis, 11 evolutionary branches were found, still dominated by BA.5.2 and BF.7, and no new mutant strains were found.

Chen Cao pointed out that the Spring Festival travel rush is currently underway and colleges and universities will also start classes in the near future. The China CDC will continue to guide the country in monitoring the novel coronavirus mutations, and continue to monitor the novel coronavirus mutations in outpatient (emergency) cases, severe cases, deaths and special populations in sentinel hospitals; monitor the novel coronavirus mutations of inbound personnel at sea, land and air ports, and issue timely warnings and take corresponding prevention and control measures.

(Source: Beijing Daily)