Interview with Wu Zunyou: How do you think Beijing has zero new additions for 10 consecutive days?

as of 2400 hours on July 15, Beijing had zero new confirmed cases of coronary pneumonia for 10 consecutive days. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a notice on the evening of July 14th, under the premise of doing a good job in the prevention and control of the epidemic, it was possible to resume cross-provincial team tourism and "air tickets and hotels" business. On July 14, the Civil Aviation Authority approved the first international passenger award flights such as China Eastern Airlines flight MU2573/4 and flight MU593/4. There are signs that life affected by the outbreak is gradually becoming normal. Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the CDC, was interviewed on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and asked him to judge the trend of zero cases and future outbreaks.: Beijing for 10 consecutive days zero new confirmed cases, the country every day in individual areas have sporadic imported cases, please judge the next outbreak may show what trend and characteristics?
: This shows that, first of all, the outbreak and associated spread of new crown pneumonia in The wholesale market in Beijing has basically ended. Once again, my country has returned to the characteristics of the outbreak of sporadic imported cases.
Second, the global epidemic shows the characteristics of a continuous rise, from all continents as a whole, the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the outbreak showed a gradual upward trend, only the European region of the outbreak is stable, but still maintained at a high epidemic level.
Third, the development of the epidemic in various countries is not balanced, some countries have experienced a period of epidemic peak, due to effective prevention and control measures, the epidemic has been better controlled, including China, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and so on.
, outbreaks continued to rise in some countries and were almost out of control. In the United States, for example, the number of new cases reported daily rose from more than 20,000 two weeks ago to more than 40,000, and continues to rise to more than 50,000, recently exceeding 60,000. "It's not like we're going to be an infectious disease expert in Professor Fucci said the number of new cases reported daily could reach 100,000 because of weak US control measures. Next to the United States is Brazil, which reports more than 40,000 cases a day. More recently, the outbreak in India has been on the rise, with more than 20,000 new cases reported daily.
, some countries have rebounded to varying degrees after the outbreak was better controlled, including Japan, South Korea, Singapore and so on. With the resumption of work and resumption of production in most countries gradually began, some countries will become a common phenomenon of the outbreak rebound.
Sixth, China's epidemic has been squeezed by two aspects, one is similar to the Beijing Xinfa wholesale market outbreak, Wuhan South China seafood market gathering outbreak, the reason has not yet been identified; For example, on June 11, 17 passengers on China Southern Airlines flight tested positive for nucleic acid, and on June 27, six passengers on a Sichuan Airlines flight tested positive for nucleic acid.
, I am confident that there will be no second serious outbreak in China similar to the one in Wuhan at the beginning of the year. This confidence mainly comes from two practical cases: First, from January to February, the country in addition to Hubei, 30 provinces (regions, cities) have successfully controlled the spread of the epidemic caused by the influx of cases in Hubei, the total number of cases in all provinces (regions, cities) are controlled within 2000 cases, in fact, only Guangdong, Henan, Zhejiang, Hunan four provinces more than a thousand cases, other provinces are under a thousand cases; China's future outbreak will be mainly imported cases, some places will appear sporadic cases, it is difficult to re-emerge in the city-level as a unit of the blocking phenomenon.: With the resumption of production, there will inevitably be more demand for resumption of flights. International cases are still showing a state of multiple, domestic outbreaks basically block local transmission, with the increase in internal and external movements of people, how to solve this contradiction?
: Still rely on precise prevention and control. Taking as an example the measures taken by Beijing to deal with the outbreak of new crown pneumonia in the wholesale market of Xinfa, it fully embodies the guiding ideology of "scientific prevention and control and precise policy-making". There are several areas worth summarizing for reference in dealing with similar outbreaks. First, the public awareness of the epidemic, prevention and control awareness has increased, which is particularly important for controlling the rapid spread of respiratory infections. For example, the earliest cases diagnosed had a strong sense of prevention and control throughout the visit, wearing masks and not using public transport, without infecting a family member or close contact. What's more, he can use his recollections to indicate where he might be infected. Second, the disease control personnel have strong awareness and ability to sensitively capture important information from the epidemiological investigation of early cases, pay timely attention to the wholesale market of new origin, and determine the source of infection. Third, the government departments set up a joint anti-joint control response mechanism sensitive, rapid action, the first time to close the new market, blocking people who may be exposed, timely and decisive cut off the transmission channels. Fourth, the use of big data to lock in new markets that have left the country, including those at risk of exposure to Beijing, to stop the further spread of the virus to provide scientific support. Fifth, accurately identify high-risk personnel in Beijing, limit departure from Beijing, to prevent proliferation. Sixth, to determine nucleic acid screening strategy, actively search for infected people who have not yet become ill, in time for the spread of the virus before blocking its spread. Seventh, the high school low outbreak risk classification and timely adjustment, to minimize the impact of the outbreak on the work and life of the masses.
the occurrence of infectious diseases has its inherent laws, understanding its natural laws, for the effective control of the epidemic is very important. To achieve accurate prevention and control, we must fully apply the natural laws of understanding in the practice of prevention and control. For example, the definition of close contact: how long-distance contact, in what way contact is a close contact? If a passenger tests positive for neo-coronavirus nucleic acid, are the passengers and staff of the entire train in close contact? Generally speaking, for neo-crown pneumonia, the passengers in the first three rows and the last three rows of the patient's seat can be close contacts, there is no need to treat all the passengers of the entire carriage as close contacts, and there is no need to treat all passengers and staff of the entire train as close contacts.
Also defined by close contact, usually the patient is contagious 1-2 days before the ont of symptoms, when the patient is diagnosed with a new case of coronary pneumonia, the first symptoms of the period between the next and the time of diagnosis close contact is close contact, push forward, the first symptoms within 2 days before contact with the person is also a close contact. There is no need to count people who come into contact a week or even 10 days before the patient's symptoms are counted as close contacts.
these reflect the concept of precision prevention and control. In short, grasp the two dimensions of time and space, you can do a good job of precision prevention and control.
most important challenge facing our country is to import cases from abroad. The new coronary pneumonia virus cannot disappear in a short period of time, as long as any country can not achieve zeroing, our country will always be threatened by imported cases.
prevention and control strategy adopted at this stage can basically maintain the low level of domestic epidemic. As China's international routes gradually open up, the number of imported cases may gradually increase. The fuse strategy adopted by our country has solved this contradiction to a certain extent. However, the current level of resumption of flights is still very limited, far from meeting the resumption of work and international exchanges, exchanges, trade and other basic requirements. To solve this contradiction, can not be achieved overnight, need a run-in process, to find the best balance between outbreak control and resumption of production.: What are the social costs of pursuing zero cases? Should we pursue zero cases?
: The pursuit of zero cases is the highest state of infectious disease prevention and control, but also to achieve the most important indicators of complete control of infectious diseases. When a new infectious disease is very difficult to control to zero cases, or to control and maintain zero cases, the social and economic costs are particularly high, we need to rethink prevention and control strategies and prevention and control objectives.
We pursue zero cases, often worried about the "fire of the stars can be the original", fear of a case if mishandled, it may cause a chain reaction, triggering a "domino effect", one pass ten, ten hundred, so that the outbreak is out of control. In fact, the epidemic of infectious diseases has its regularity.
according to the epidemic law of infectious diseases, when the basic regeneration index of an infectious disease, that is, the average number of infections per patient. When this regeneration index is greater than 1, the number of infectious diseases will increase and the epidemic will rise. When this regeneration index is reduced to less than 1, the number of infectious diseases decreases and the outbreak decreases. The basic regeneration index of neo-crown pneumonia is between 2-6, i.e. the average patient can infect 2-6 people without any prevention and control measures. The basic regeneration index is influenced by population density and by the way people interact with each other. When the national wearing a mask, maintain a social distance of 1 meter of prevention and control measures, the basic regeneration index will be reduced to less than 1, the outbreak will be controlled.
, there is no need to pursue the zero-case control target too much. As long as the outbreak is contained at a low level and basic social and economic development requirements are guaranteed, this is the best strategy.
resources of any society are limited, and there are many other diseases that affect human health. Overemphasizing the complete control of the outbreak of neo-crown pneumonia may result in the health and safety of the people caused by other diseases, which may have a greater impact than the outbreak of neo-crown pneumonia. How to find the best balance and maximize the people's health benefits is a new proposition before us. : During the outbreak, we noticed that you have a large number of social activities, how do you now in public places for personal protection?
Wu Zunyou: Personally, for example, I am currently assisting at the Beijing CDC, the main task is to assist in the investigation of why the wholesale market in Xinfa district formed a local virus transmission center, and how the new coronavirus was first brought into the new outbreak market. To accomplish these tasks, my main activities include video conferencing, face-to-face meetings with relevant staff, coordination with relevant department personnel, on-site investigations, interviews with early patients, transportation, and so on. Wearing a mask is a consistent precaution in these activities. In addition, insist on washing your hands, open windows and ventilate when driving, etc.
new coronavirus epidemic has been more than half a year, although we have limited understanding of it, but more than 6 months, our knowledge of the characteristics of the virus has grown rapidly. It is important to recognize that the new coronavirus cannot disappear in a short period of time and will coexist with humans for a long time. We may, at least for some time to come, never return to the way we live and work until the end of December 2019. Or the new coronavirus may change the way people live and work.
we need to recognize and come to accept the fact that sporadic imported cases, or even a small number of cases, in China will become the norm in our lives. For the general public, learn to accept this reality as soon as possible.