![]() ![]() If there is little or no indication when this zero-COVID strategy will change, it is because it has been a great success. Unusually, there have even been protests, with people in some neighborhoods of Shanghai gathering on their balconies at prearranged times to bang pots and pans in frustration. Videos of their hardships are posted and shared by millions, just as quickly as censors scrub them from the Internet. “We project that the Chinese healthcare system will be overwhelmed with a considerable shortage of ICUs,” they said.īut the strategy is pushing many Chinese to breaking point. Researchers estimate that China would be hit with 112 million cases in a three-month period, leading to 1.5 million deaths. National Institutes of Health, published on May 10 in the peer-reviewed Nature Medicine. Allowing COVID-19 to spread in China would lead to a “tsunami” of cases, according to a new study by Shanghai’s Fudan University, Indiana University, and the U.S. (The resulting outcry led to a pledge from city authorities to end the practice.)ĭespite growing unease about lockdown measures, President Xi Jinping doubled down on China’s zero-COVID strategy during a May 5 meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, the nation’s top political body. Videos have been shared of sanitation workers-dubbed dabai or “big whites” on account of the PPE they wear-entering homes without permission and spraying disinfectant. Food deliveries are banned in at least four of the city’s sixteen districts. Now, if somebody tests positive, all the residents of their apartment block, and not just close contacts as before, will be isolated in quarantine centers. But just as residents thought they were through the worst, restrictions were tightened once again this week. Many parents have been forcibly separated from their children and videos of unaccompanied infants crying in a Shanghai COVID-19 hospital have gone viral.Īcross China’s most populous city, mental health has taken a severe battering. A woman gripes that her family refuses to eat the meager cabbage soup she has improvised for them from her dwindling larder. One pensioner says she is unable to receive the heart medicine she needs. Some document their confinement in quarantine centers without beds or blankets. “At present, the epidemic prevention work in Zhengzhou is progressing steadily, and the impact … is controllable,” the statement said.Ĭhina has repeatedly vowed to stick to its zero-tolerance response to Covid-19 and implement what the authorities say are necessary measures to contain the virus.The lockdown in Shanghai is now in its sixth week and residents have been flooding social media with disgruntled posts. The company did not specify how many staff were affected by the outbreak but said it was a “small number” and that unsubstantiated online rumours of tens of thousands of infections were “patently false”. “Health and safety measures for employees (are) being maintained,” the Taiwanese electronics maker said, adding that it was “providing the necessary guarantees for livelihoods, including material supplies, psychological comfort and responsive feedback”. In Zhengzhou, there was an outbreak at a factory that employs about 300,000 people and is known as the largest producer of iPhones in the world.įoxconn Technology Group, which runs the facility, acknowledged the flare-up on Wednesday but said “operation and production … is relatively stable”. In Beijing, the Universal Resort theme park was shut on Wednesday after at least one visitor tested positive for coronavirus. Other large cities across China including Datong and Xi’an have implemented new curbs this week to rein in local outbreaks. “To reduce the risk of transmission, some vegetable and fruit stores have been closed and put under quarantine,” said a Xining government official on Wednesday.Ĭhina’s coronavirus case load has remained small by global standards, but its ultra-strict containment measures against the highly transmissible Omicron variant have weighed heavily on the world’s second-largest economy and rattled financial markets. ![]() In Xining, capital of Qinghai province, social media posts told of food shortages and price inflation for essential goods as health authorities in the city of 2.5 million people raced to contain a Covid rebound after the week-long National Day holiday in early October. Guangzhou, China’s fourth-biggest city by economic output and the provincial capital of Guangdong, on Thursday sealed up more streets and neighbourhoods and kept people in their homes as new areas were deemed high-risk in a Covid resurgence that has persisted into its fourth week. Wuhan also suspended the sale of pork in parts of the city, according to images and posts on social media, after authorities said one Covid case had been linked to the local pork supply chain. ![]()
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