New guidelines to further optimize COVID prevention and control

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Time estimated: 5 min

Students take temperature checks at a local school.

Based on the State Council-recommended COVID-19 prevention and control measures, Shanghai accordingly released its own updated and optimized measures yesterday.

The new guideline states that no mass screening of an entire local district will be done unless the source of infection or the transmission chain, as well as long-term community transmission, is unknown.

Routine PCR testing and community screening will be improved.

Students in Shanghai will be subjected to nucleic acid tests on alternate days on campus, rather than every day, the city government has announced.

Local primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens and childcare facilities, will conduct polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday under the new measures.

The directive follows the State Council's latest directive on new COVID measures that aim to improve the precision of COVID-19 prevention and control while limiting the impact on economic and social growth.

The local government confirmed that it will adopt other State Council-recommended measures, such as reducing the quarantine period for inbound passengers and close contacts to five days in central quarantine, followed by three days at home.
Secondary close contacts, or the close contacts to the COVID contacts, will no longer be identified, while COVID medium-risk areas will be scrapped.
If no cases are found in high-risk areas for five consecutive days, it will be considered low risk.

On November 11, China reduced the quarantine period for inbound travelers. Travelers from overseas will now have to spend five days in central quarantine, followed by three days at home. Previously, they had to quarantine for a total of 10 days, including three days at home.

The quarantine period for close contacts of COVID infections has also been cut to five days at a central quarantine facility plus three days at home, from seven and three days, the National Health Commission said on its official WeChat account.

The new measures aim to enhance the precision of COVID-19 prevention and control, while reducing the influence on economic and social development to the largest extent.

— National Health Commission

According to the new rules, overseas flights to the Chinese mainland will no longer be suspended for bringing COVID-19 infections into the country.

The suspension mechanism was launched by the Civil Aviation Administration of China in June 2020 for international passenger flights to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Also, travelers boarding an airplane to the Chinese mainland require only a 48-hour valid PCR test, instead of two.

The commission said that close contacts will still be traced more precisely, but secondary close contacts, or the close contacts to the COVID contacts, will no longer be identified.

COVID medium-risk areas will be scrapped, and the number of people to be put under lockdown will be largely reduced. If no cases are found in a high-risk area for five consecutive days, the area will be considered low-risk.

Mass PCR screenings will also be restricted. Only the risk groups will be included in the screening, which cannot be expanded randomly.

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Editor: Su Yanxian
Designer: Melo Zhang, Shen XinyiWriter: Yang Jian

Photo: ImagineChina, Hellorf

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