A prefecture-level city's infection "data samples": January or two waves of peak, health system infection more than half

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“Recently, the city’s overall new coronavirus infection is in a rapid development stage, and the number of new infections and the rate of infection in a single day are still rising. Since the release of the ‘National Ten’ on December 7, as of 24:00 on December 27, the city has detected a cumulative total of 210,000 positive infections, with the highest being on the 21st (25,375 cases), up 384 times compared to the 7th (66 cases).”

In the afternoon of December 28, Quzhou City, located in the western part of Zhejiang Province, held a press conference on the prevention and control of new coronavirus infection. Liao Lijun, party secretary and director of Quzhou Health Committee, introduced that according to the study, the city will enter the peak of infection at the end of December, reach the first wave of peak at the beginning of January (around New Year’s Day) and enter a high plateau period, and may reach the second wave of peak at the end of January (a week after the Spring Festival). At the same time, a peak of serious illness may occur about a week after the peak of infection is reached.

It was introduced that with reference to the data from the microsoft questionnaire of the CDC, the overall infection rate in the city is currently about 30-35% of the total population, the regional distribution is mainly concentrated in urban areas and large township locations, the infected population is mainly concentrated in the middle-aged and youth population, and the infection rate in the rural elderly population is not yet high. However, with the arrival of holidays, school vacations and the return of migrant workers, the shock wave of infection will soon reach rural areas. Due to the large number of “one old and one young” in rural areas, the relative shortage of medical resources, and the lack of scientific treatment awareness, the number of rural elderly and children infected may increase rapidly, and need to pay attention in advance.

From the point of view of virus strains, gene sequencing of 46 nucleic acid samples collected recently from newly crown-positive infected patients revealed that multiple variants of Omicron were prevalent in the city at the same time, with BA.5.2 as the main strain and BF.7 increasing in proportion, which is a cause for concern. In terms of onset symptoms, a questionnaire survey of 3479 previously infected patients revealed that among the top ten symptoms, fever, cough and muscle aches were the three most important symptoms, with muscle aches appearing in the highest proportion, accounting for 66.67%; followed by fever, accounting for 65.4%, with fever lasting 1-2 days being the most frequent, and most infected patients having fever receding in three days. The starting symptoms were mainly sore throat, fever and malaise, and most of the symptoms lasted for seven days. The longest duration and a certain percentage was cough, followed by sore throat.

This release also provided several sets of data: on December 27, there were 10,331 beds open in the city’s secondary and higher hospitals, with 7,913 patients of all types in the hospital, of which there were 1,464 positive infections, 43 critical (caused by underlying disease), 14 heavy (caused by underlying disease), 192 ordinary, 1,209 light, and 6 asymptomatic cases. There were no serious patients directly caused by the new coronavirus infection in the city for the time being.

In terms of capacity, as of December 27, 24 public hospitals at the county level and above, 104 township health centers (community health service centers) and 6 private hospitals have set up fever clinics or consultation rooms, with a total of 329 specialized consultation rooms, and the estimated daily capacity can reach 29,600 people. From December 7 to 27, the number of daily visits to fever clinics (clinics) in the city increased from 868 to a maximum of 14,600 (on the 23rd), an increase of nearly 16 times, and on December 27, the number of visits to fever clinics (clinics) was 13,900, including 7,187 visits to primary fever clinics. Showing an improved flow of patient visits, the number of febrile patients visiting fever clinics in the city began to decline, and the proportion of primary care visits for fever patients rebounded to 51.6%.

“The biggest challenge for the health care system at the moment is still the problem of staffing constraints.” Liao Lijun introduced, from our own monitoring data, as of December 26, the city has 9,215 health technicians infected, accounting for 56.9% of the total number of health technicians included in monitoring medical institutions; 6,351 people have returned to work, and there are still 2,864 people who have not yet returned to work. With the arrival of the peak of infection, it can be expected that the infection rate of medical personnel will further increase, and the deployment of human resources in medical institutions will face greater difficulties. But no matter how difficult it is, the city’s medical workers will strive to practice the professional spirit of “respecting life, saving lives and helping the injured, and being willing to dedicate”, and use twelve percent of efforts to do their best to guard the last line of defense for the people of the city.

Liao Lijun appealed that recently, medical personnel work very hard and under great pressure, they are striving to hold on, not to be injured in the line of fire, they are the white warriors who charge into battle, but they are also flesh and blood, are an ordinary person. Their efforts should be seen and respected, please everyone to the medical staff more understanding and care.