Medical workers walk past the nucleic acid test laboratory named Huoyan, or Fire Eye, in Shijiazhuang, North China's Hebei Province, Jan. 26, 2021. Photo: Xinhua
If there were no strict prevention and control measures, at least 130,000 people in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province and 120,000 people in North China's Hebei Province could have been infected with the coronavirus by the end of February, said China's top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan.
Zhong made the remarks at a press conference on Sunday, noting that according to a prediction model of COVID-19 outbreak situation developed by Lanzhou University, the epidemic situation in China's Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces will be basically under control in February with strong intervention from the government.
The number of confirmed cases in the current outbreak in Jilin and Hebei provinces has far exceeded that of the Xinfadi wholesales market outbreak in Beijing in June, which ended in 27 days with about 300 people confirmed to be infected, said Zhong.
"The low temperature provides a good living environment for the virus, and people tend to gather indoors in cold weather," Zhong explained.
The Chinese mainland reported 73 new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases on Sunday, of which 63 were in Jilin, nine were in Heilongjiang and one was in Hebei, reports said.
According to a previous study published in the Science journal by 22 scholars around the world, at least 700,000 people have been prevented from being infected with COVID-19, during the first 50 days of the epidemic outbreak in China last year, thanks to the lockdown of Wuhan and adoption of the highest level of public health emergency responses in various regions.
Zhong pointed out that around the world, there is a dilemma over whether to take tough measures to control the outbreak. "But once the prevention and control measures are relaxed, the epidemic would immediately rebound," said Zhong.
According to the latest data of World Health Organization, more than 102 million COVID-19 cases have been confirmed globally, with over 2.2 million deaths reported, as of press time.