Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - China is battling emerging COVID-19 flare-ups across the nation with widespread testing and new regulati...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - China is battling emerging COVID-19 flare-ups across the nation with widespread testing and new regulations, notably in tired Shanghai where recent cases have been connected to a structure that houses an unlicensed karaoke lounge.
Officials are under increasing pressure to prevent a wider spread and interruptions like the painful and expensive isolation Shanghai, China's most populated metropolis, experienced in April and May.
Zhao Dandan, a city health official, told reporters on Wednesday that "many Chinese localities are dealing with local outbreaks and illnesses have emerged at the community level in Shanghai, to which we should give significant significance."
Zhao emphasised that there shouldn't be any laxity.
Even though the nation's most recent daily caseload of little over 300 infections is negligible by international standards, concerns that it would lead to yet another round of stringent limitations impacted on Chinese stocks and markets throughout the globe.
While the rest of the world tries to live alongside the virus, China is the only major economy that is firmly committed to a "zero-COVID" policy aimed at swiftly eliminating all breakouts.
Its rigid stance has provoked uncommon public outbursts of rage and is impeding the revival of the second-largest economy in the world.
Shanghai is testing all inhabitants in nine of its 16 districts from Tuesday to Thursday as well as those in portions of three other districts after reporting 24 new cases on Tuesday compared to eight the day before.
Residents of the 25 million-person commercial metropolis already have to frequently undergo tests in order to access malls or use public transportation.
Karaoke bars have been shut down by city officials, while freshly reopened cultural institutions like libraries will continue to be open. On Friday, theatres are expected to reopen.
'WAR-TIME'
Beijing, which announced six cases on Tuesday, pleaded with hotels and transportation hubs to check visitors' body temperatures and request documentation of negative COVID test results.
On Tuesday, from 231 the day before, the caseload in the eastern Anhui province, where over 1 million people in tiny towns are in lockdown, decreased marginally to 222. The majority of new infections in China are still attributed to this province.
A seven-day ban on dining in restaurants and the closure of a number of entertainment establishments went into force on Wednesday in the Shaanxi province's metropolis of Xian. On Tuesday, the 13 million-person city discovered 11 new instances.
The first significant Chinese city to declare a war on the contagious Omicron COVID variant's BA.5.2 subvariant, which is thought to be more infectious than the BA.2 subvariant observed in past outbreaks in China, is Xian, known for its Terracotta Army.
Zhao Yide, the governor of Shaanxi, advised that cities in the province shift into "war-time" mode and intensify traveller screening.
On Tuesday, 65 more cases were found in the Jiangsu province's eastern region. The World Athletics Half-Marathon Championship that was slated to take place in the province, Yangzhou, in November 2022 has been cancelled by the Chinese Athletics Association.
"UNIMAGINABLE" REPERCUSSIONS
President Xi Jinping, who is widely anticipated to win a record-breaking third term as party chief later this year, reaffirmed the nation's "dynamic zero-COVID" policy during a visit to Wuhan last week, the city where COVID was first discovered.
Xi stated that admitting COVID as an endemic in China would have "unimaginable" ramifications and that it was preferable to incur "temporary" economic costs rather than "hurt the lives and health of the people."
According to officials, there have been millions of deaths due to COVID worldwide as opposed to the 5,226 confirmed in China.
China's economy expanded roughly 0.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, according to Minsheng Bank, down from 4.8 percent in the first due to widespread lockdowns. The data is due the following week.
Due to widespread concern over reoccurring COVID waves, businesses are still hesitant to hire new employees and make capital investments, which are all negative factors for the economy.
According to Reuters, China will soon establish a 500 billion yuan ($74.69 billion) public infrastructure fund to boost the economy.
