Importance of vaccination cannot be overstressed

In a grim reminder that the epidemic prevention and control work brooks no complacency, hardly had a new cluster of infections of the novel coronavirus in the border areas of the southwestern Yunnan province been brought under control than a fresh cluster emerged in Jiangsu province, which has since spilled over to other provinces.

Zhuhai in Guangdong province and Wuhu in Anhui province have begun mass testing for the virus after asymptomatic infections were found linked to the cases in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, which is now conducting a second round of citywide nucleic acid testing.

That the latest clusters of local infections in Yunnan and Jiangsu both originated from imported cases also reinforces the importance of containing imported infections and preventing them from causing local community transmission.