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Review
. 2021 Apr 10;17(6):1600-1612.
doi: 10.7150/ijbs.58906. eCollection 2021.

From impossible to possible: the lessons from the control of recent COVID-19 outbreaks in China

Lixin Tai  1   2 , Kengieng Wong  1   2 , Li Wang  1   3 , Li-Jun Di  1   2
Affiliations
Review

From impossible to possible: the lessons from the control of recent COVID-19 outbreaks in China

Lixin Tai et al. Int J Biol Sci. .

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has catastrophically impacted the world. Before the success in vaccination, this virus shows no sign of stop spreading. Nearly all the countries have implemented stringent approaches to slow down the transmission of the virus, but the virus still caused over 2 million deaths and the number is increasing. Therefore, preventing the virus spreading is still necessary to protect most people, especially the ones with pre-conditions. Mainland China has successfully eradicated the COVID-19 virus infection in Wuhan in 2020. After that, several small-scale outbreaks occurred in many cities in China, but none of these COVID-19 virus infections caused the widespread. In this review, we would like to give a detailed presentation of the approaches that were implemented by the China government to suppress the virus spreading by considering the unique characteristics of this virus and the paths of the virus transmission. Both the pros and cons of these strategies will also be analyzed. The experiences and lessons learned during the virus-fighting in China, expectedly, will be a useful source of reference for other regions in overcoming the threat caused by the COVID-19 virus.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Daily change of COVID-19 virus positive cases in Hong Kong. The diagram shows the daily number of COVID-19 cases in Hong Kong since Jan 17, 2020. Three virus infection peaks were observed within 2020. The arrows indicate the implementation of regulations on social distancing by Hong Kong Government. Red arrows indicate the implementation time point of the stringent regulation and green arrows indicate the releasing time point of the regulation. The implementation of the stringent control of social distancing is followed by a peak of infections. The releasing of the social distancing control at the end of each infection peak is followed by a long period of low new cases. Of noting is that the third wave of infection contains two peaks without change of the social distancing restriction policy.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Interruption of the transmission of COVID-19 virus by PEI. The diagram describes the way of the COVID-19 virus transmission and how the PEI is applied to interrupt the virus spreading. Generally, the awareness of the first positive case as indicated as purple individual here, is through routine virus test. Of noting is that this first case may not be the initial case. From the purple case, both the upstream and downstream close contacts will be found and quarantined through PEI (red arrow). PEI will be further applied to identify the second and sometimes even third layer of close contacts as indicated as black arrows. Green cases represent the close contacts with negative virus test and red cases represent the positive contacts. The green cases will also be quarantined unless the upstream close contact is confirmed to be virus negative. The dotted red cases indicate the undetermined number of infected patients after the third layer of close contacts which could be a large number.
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