China risks a “second wave” of coronavirus transmissions outside Hubei province, the epicentre of the pandemic, as it looks to ease months of restrictive measures and re-start economic activity.
According to research published by leading medical journal The Lancet, travellers from outside China could also inadvertently bring the virus into the country. The report warned that Chinese authorities have to find a balance between kick-starting the economy and maintaining some level of health intervention such as social distancing.
China first reported what has now become known as Covid-19 last December and has recorded more than 81,000 cases and at least 3,331 deaths. However, some world leaders and officials have accused China of underreporting cases and not being clear about how infectious Covid-19 is.
The virus originated in Wuhan, Hubei province in central China. The city this week began easing itself out of a highly restrictive quarantine that has lasted for months. New cases and deaths have almost completely disappeared and those who have tested positive now typically caught the virus from abroad and brought it into China.
Europe is now seen as the new epicentre of the virus while the US has recorded the most deaths worldwide.
The Lancet said the interventions ordered by Chinese authorities, including social distancing, had clearly "substantially" reduced the transmissibility.
"A second wave of Covid-19 transmission is possible because of viral reintroduction (particularly international importation—eg, from Italy or elsewhere in Europe, Iran, USA, and other rapidly burgeoning secondary epicentres) that has been exponentially increasing since March, as well as viral transmissibility that might rebound with the gradual resumption of economic activities, and thus normal levels of social mixing," The Lancet said.
“Close monitoring of the instantaneous effective reproduction number and real-time tuning of policy interventions to ensure a manageable second wave remains the over-riding public health priority,” it added.
The Lancet said China had to now find a careful balance between kick-starting it's economy after months of inactivity and ensuring that some certain control policies including social distancing remain in place to some extent.
Mass-testing should also continue to help with early detection, it added.
China has adopted new measures to curb the spread of the virus by asymptomatic carriers, whom some state media described as "silent carriers".
Medical institutions must now report such cases within two hours of discovery. Local governments then have 24 hours to identify all known close contacts. Both the patient and close contacts will be quarantined for 14 days.
