Disease control expert Sun Xiaodong: Omikron is by no means a big flu, and must adhere to “dynamic clearing”

At present, Shanghai’s battle against the epidemic has reached the most critical moment. Throughout the current round of the epidemic, there are many asymptomatic infections in Shanghai, which is not unrelated to the recent emergence of the Omicron strain as the main epidemic strain. The characteristics of the BA.2 branch of the Omicron variant strain are that it spreads quickly, spreads easily, and is more concealed and harder to detect.

Strong contagion, fast transmission, and reduced toxicity have also made some arguments such as “Omicron is the big flu” spread online. Sun Xiaodong, deputy director of the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention made it clear in an interview with this reporter that this statement is untenable. Although there is a certain understanding of pathogenicity and transmissibility, the understanding is not sufficient. We must continue to adhere to the prevention and control strategy of ‘dynamic clearing’ without hesitation.”

Sun Xiaodong said that according to the current foreign data, the incidence of severe illness and fatality rate of people infected with Omicron is relatively high. From a domestic point of view, my country has a large population base. If we do not insist on “dynamic clearing”, the Omicron variant will easily lead to more people being infected, and there must be many children, teenagers and the elderly among them. < strong>“The immune system of children is not fully developed, the resistance of the elderly is relatively weak, and many people have underlying diseases. Once infected, the proportion of severe illness and death is bound to be high.”

Talking about the current round of the epidemic in Shanghai, Sun Xiaodong said that not only the number of positive infections is high, but also the places and types involved are also very large. Aggregation characteristics.

Based on this, the city’s prevention and control gestures based on the “dynamic clearing” prevention and control strategy are also constantly changing.

Recently, antigen testing or nucleic acid testing has been carried out continuously across the city in order to comprehensively identify potential new coronavirus infections and completely cut off the way the virus spreads.

Tomorrow, Shanghai will carry out antigen testing across the city. Sun Xiaodong believes that The currently approved antigen test provides a lot of convenience for epidemic prevention and control, and it also creates conditions for the disease control department to detect positive infections earlier, and improves the detection of positive infections in society. Sensitivity.

He also mentioned that after the discovery of infected persons, the key is how to implement control and related disease prevention and control measures as soon as possible. At present, the city has successively opened a number of designated hospitals and Fangcang shelter hospitals, and will continue to convert some large public facilities into Fangcang shelter hospitals, which provides conditions for the realization of the collection of infected people.

“From the beginning of March to the present, many people in the disease control department often stay up late to fight and are already in a very tired state, but we are confident that we can control the epidemic.” Sun Xiaodong said.

*Wenhui’s exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source for reprinting.