'Lying flat' not advisable in virus battle: People's Daily

Imaginechina

"Lying flat" is not advisable, and "to win by lying flat" is impossible, People's Daily said on Wednesday when commenting on China's strict pandemic control measures for the third straight day.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has exceeded 618 million, with over 6.5 million deaths, according to data released by the World Health Organization on October 10. Since the beginning of this year, the number of global deaths has exceeded 1 million.

The People's Daily article pointed out that the current pandemic situation in the world and the ever-mutating coronavirus should serve as a warning to us: Only by insisting on a dynamic zero-COVID policy can we avoid huge losses caused by losing control of the pandemic to the greatest extent.

"Once the pandemic prevention and control is relaxed, a large number of people will be infected within a short period of time, a large number of severe cases and deaths will occur, resulting in a run on medical resources, and normal medical service needs will not be solved, forming a vicious circle," the newspaper wrote.

The article provides examples to prove that negative epidemic prevention has serious consequences. According to US News & World Report, nearly 24 million adults in the United States currently suffer from long-term sequelae of COVID-19, 81 percent of whom are having trouble carrying out daily activities.

From a scientific point of view, "lying flat" increases the risk of new mutant strains emerging. There are uncertainties in the mutation and evolution of the virus. More infected cases mean more opportunities for the virus to mutate. Relaxing prevention and control will greatly increase the risk of virus mutation, and the emergence of new mutant strains may bring new transmission risks and infection threats, the commentary said.

In fact, some countries choose to "lie flat" and adopt the policy of "coexisting with the virus" not because they do not want to prevent and control the epidemic, but because they don't have the ability to do so, the article pointed out.

After many attempts, these countries could not find an ideal strategy to control the pandemic, and simply chose to "lie flat." This is precisely because they failed to effectively control the pandemic in the early stage, and they have lost the opportunity to dynamically clear the cases. Once the number of infections and deaths rises sharply, prevention and control strategies will again be tightened.

According to media reports, the French Ministry of Health stated that "it does not rule out the resumption of the mandatory requirement to wear masks in closed public places," and German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach called on people to take preventive measures and vaccinations to combat the peak infection in autumn and winter.

In comparison, due to appropriate prevention and control policies and effective measures, the domestic pandemic situation in China is stable and the country can dynamically stamp out COVID infections in general, the article said.