China’s targeted and successful COVID-19 prevention and control efforts enabled the safe and seamless holding of the Winter Olympics, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday, defending his country’s strict zero-COVID policy amid a large rise of coronavirus infections in Shanghai and other places.
“In light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, we have prioritized the health of all participants, adhering to the policy of preventing the coronavirus from re-entering the country and enforcing the preventative and control measures,” Xi added.
He asserted that China’s anti-COVID policy has once again withstood the test of time, contributing useful experience for the world to fight the virus and host major international events, while speaking at a gathering to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Paralympic Winter Games.
“If there was a gold medal for reacting to the pandemic, as some international athletes have suggested, China deserves it,” Xi added.
Since 2020, China has substantially reduced overseas travel by cancelling visas and banning flights under the dynamic zero-Covid policy.
He also credited the accomplishment to the ruling Communist Party of China’s (CPC) judicious management of events, claiming that the party is the most reliable backbone for the Chinese people to achieve great things.
“As long as we remain steadfast in our support for the Party leadership, we will undoubtedly overcome all problems and hurdles in our future work,” Xi stated.
Xi’s remarks came after Shanghai, China’s largest city with a population of 26 million, became the new epicenter of the newest COVID-19 outbreak, documenting over 20,000 cases in six days, leading officials to place the city under lockdown for several days to undertake mass tests.
According to reports from Shanghai, three officials have been suspended for failing to respond quickly enough to stop the Omicron virus from spreading throughout the city.
The National Health Commission of China (NHC) reported over 24,100 coronavirus cases in the country on Friday, including 22,648 asymptomatic cases.
According to the data from the Commission, Shanghai recorded 824 positive cases and 20,398 asymptomatic cases.
As of Thursday, the NHC had received reports of 1,540 new locally transmitted confirmed cases in China.
After Wuhan, where coronavirus first showed in December 2019, this is the country’s largest increase in COVID cases.
According to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper, the outbreak in Shanghai, which is caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19, is becoming so serious that the city’s Communist Party sent an open letter to rally members to help front-line health workers find and eradicate the disease.
It was the second letter written by cadres in the city where the party was founded a century ago since March 24.
In a similar endeavor to limit the coronavirus in Wuhan, China has already dispatched thousands of personnel from various military medical services to Shanghai.
In February and March, the Beijing Winter Olympic Games and the Paralympic Winter Games were held.
Beijing, which held the summer Olympics in 2008, is now the world’s only city to have hosted both the summer and winter Olympics.
The United States, the European Union, and several other countries boycotted the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics because to allegations of human rights violations against Uygur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
