BEIJING: China stepped up Covid control measures across the country especially in provincial capitals – ordering lockdowns and mass testing – as infections rebounded, with health authorities on Tuesday reporting more than 2,000 cases for a third consecutive day.
Authorities reported 2,719 Covid infections on Tuesday for the day before, including 498 symptomatic ones. China has been reporting over 2,000 cases for three consecutive days, with 2,898 cases reported on Sunday and 2,105 cases on Saturday.
While the country’s daily caseload remains low when compared globally, the government has adhered to a strict implementation of its “zero-Covid” policy. Authorities carry out contact tracing and lock down residential areas in a bid to isolate every single case, despite its adverse impact on China’s economy.
At least 34 cities and over 256 million individuals in China have been “affected” by “lockdown measures” as of Monday, according to government statistics compiled by brokerage Nomura. That’s nearly 50 million more people from the previous week in October.
“Guangdong – China’s largest provincial economy – has been hit hardest, while Xinjiang now has the second most severe local outbreak,” Nomura said in its report.
Despite market expectations after the recently-concluded Communist Party of China national congress that Beijing’s zero-Covid policy would be eased, authorities have shown no intentions of stepping away from the restrictive strategy.
“I’m not aware of the situation you mentioned,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Zhao Lijian, said on Tuesday when he was asked to clarify an unexpected stock market rally after social media posts circulated an unverified document claiming China had formed a committee to assess border reopenings in March.
Instead, Nomura said, a growing number of cities are seeing even more restrictive lockdowns and travel bans, as local government officials’ performance and promotions are widely believed to be based on how effectively they are able to stop the spread of Covid in the areas under their control.
“This time around, the lockdown measures have been quietly stepped up without attracting much public attention, affecting a number of provincial capital cities, with our in-house Nomura China Covid lockdown index (CLI) rising to 9.5% of China’s total GDP from 8.5% last Monday,” the report said.
Authorities in the special administrative region of Macao on Tuesday carried out virus testing on all of its 700,000 residents after just one case was found last week.
The Shanghai city government, meanwhile, has appealed to anyone who had visited the Disney Resort in the city since Thursday to undergo three days of nucleic acid testing and avoid gathering in groups. The resort was shut down after reports of one positive case.
Separately, Beijing has dispatched Covid-control experts to one the largest iPhone production plant Zhengzhou city in central China, which is operated by Foxconn and has been hit by a Covid outbreak, to strengthen its disease-control capability, while improving working conditions for employees.
The groups were dispatched after videos, allegedly showing workers walking out of the sprawling factory following a Covid scare, went viral. They were said to have been locked inside the factory for at least three weeks.
“The Foxconn plant — a major supplier for iPhone that has about 200,000 employees — has been affected by a developing Covid-19 outbreak in Zhengzhou,” state-run China Daily newspaper reported on Tuesday.
“The company has conducted daily Covid-19 tests for all workers since Oct 10, and it initiated a closed-loop management protocol on Oct 13 — meaning that all workers live in designated dormitories or hotels and only commute between the plant and their living quarters,” the report said.
