China alters its isolation policy in the wake of the worst Covid outbreak

Key Takeaways:

• The country's beleaguered health authorities announced that those with mild infections should opt for centralized isolation rather than hospitalization, reporting 3,290 Covid-19 cases for the previous day.

On Wednesday, China reported 3,290 Covid-19 cases for the previous day, as the country's beleaguered health authorities announced that those with mild infections should opt for centralized isolation rather than hospitalization, as was previously the case.

As China scrambled to comprise the worst as well as widest Covid-19 outbreak since the virus was initially detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, the decision was made to maximize hospital resources.

Though health authorities throughout China continued to implement strict lockdown measures affecting millions of people and conducted repeated mass tests on residents at sealed-off locations, the number of cases fell by half in the last 24 hours.

Jilin, the northeastern province that borders Russia and North Korea and is the epicenter of the ongoing outbreak, has continued to be the hardest hit. It found 1,456 locally transmitted symptomatic cases, accounting for 60% of all cases in the previous 24 hours.

The number of infections in the province has dropped by half compared to a day earlier. However, it still has over a thousand fresh cases for the fourth day in a row, with an official describing the fight to end the outbreak as having reached a "critical stage."

"Over a dozen other provincial-level regions, such as Beijing, the capital, saw new locally-transmitted Covid-19 infections," the National Health Commission (NHC) reported on Wednesday.

In the meantime, China has modified its Covid-19 hospitalization and isolation rules in response to the surge in cases to avoid putting the country's healthcare system under strain.

Patients with no or only mild symptoms should be admitted to centralized isolation facilities, according to the NHC, while those with severe symptoms should be admitted to designated hospitals.

The policy change – previously, hospitalization was required for all positive Covid-19 patients – is a rare acknowledgment that the current policy of mandatory hospitalization for all positive patients may be overburdening hospitals in the face of rising cases.

"The change is in response to the fact that the majority of cases involving the dominant Omicron strain are asymptomatic or only show mild symptoms," the state-run China Daily reported on Wednesday. A total of 1,860 of the over 3,000 cases were symptomatic.

"Because most people don't need much treatment," the NHC said in a statement, "admitting those with mild cases to designated hospitals will waste medical resources."

"Those with mild infections will be treated and monitored during isolation," according to the NHC, adding that "if their condition worsens, they will be transmitted to designated hospitals for further treatment."

Another change is that instead of spending 14 days in isolation, discharged patients now only have to monitor their health for seven days at home.