China says latest COVID-19 resurgence more complicated but controllable

The latest resurgence of COVID-19 in China, caused mainly by the Delta variant, is more complicated but the epidemic is generally controllable, a Chinese official has said.

He Qinghua, a senior official with the National Health Commission (NHC), made the remarks at a press conference organized by the State Council inter-agency task force on Thursday.

"As long as local authorities strictly implement various prevention and control measures, I think the epidemic will be largely under control within two to three incubation periods," he said.

He acknowledged that the current wave is more complicated and has put some strain on response efforts since it has multiple imported sources and has affected a wide range of people and places.

The latest outbreak mainly originated from a flight that departed from Russia and landed in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province. Further viral genome sequencing has found that all the strains in the recent resurgence of COVID-19 were the highly infectious Delta variant.

In a bid to curtail the spread of the Delta variant, prevention measures have been taken across China, including massive testing, targeted lockdowns, and extensive contact tracing.

As of Aug. 7, the Chinese mainland has administered more than 1.77 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines.