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Beijing roars to life after lockdowns, but China not out of the woods
Crowds gather to watch a band perform at the Solana mall in Beijing on Christmas Eve 2022, as the city recovers from a Covid wave.
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
BEIJING — People are returning to the streets in China’s capital city as it emerges from a wave of Covid infections.
During the Monday morning rush hour, traffic in Beijing surged by about 90% from a week ago — to “heavily congested” levels, according to Baidu data.
Over the weekend, ticket orders for Beijing city attractions doubled from the prior week, according to data cited by Chinese business news site 21st Century Business Herald. CNBC was unable to verify the figures.
Anecdotally, foot traffic at malls and Universal Beijing Resort’s CityWalk over the weekend was up significantly to modestly crowded levels. Not all stores have reopened yet. Christmas is not a public holiday in mainland China, but often celebrated by younger people.
In contrast to the surge in Beijing city traffic, Shanghai and Shenzhen still saw very low levels of congestion Monday morning, the Baidu data showed. The two cities started to see a wave of Covid infections after Beijing did.
The rebound in social activity in Beijing over the last few days is an example of how long it might take for the country to shake off the economic impact of zero-Covid controls.
A month ago, Beijing residents were dealing with a surge in apartment lockdowns and subsequent public protests. In early December, municipal and central authorities abruptly ended many Covid controls amid a surge in infections.
The city said visits to fever clinics soared by 16-fold in a week — to 22,000 on Dec. 11. Four days later, the daily number had climbed to 73,000 visits, but by Dec. 21, the figure had eased to 65,000 visits, according to an official report Saturday. The city has a population of about 22 million.
The share of severe Covid cases and elderly patients has increased, the report said. It cited a director at a local hospital as saying the share of visits by the elderly had climbed from below 20% to nearly 50%.
China’s elderly have lower Covid vaccination rates and often have underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the virus. Anecdotally, deaths have ticked up.
However, there are fewer and fewer official disclosures. China’s National Health Commission on Sunday stopped sharing daily figures on Covid infections and deaths, ending a practice of nearly three years.
One of the official arguments for maintaining strict Covid controls was that the already stretched national health system would struggle to handle a surge in infections.
Covid cases still soar
Despite the lack of national-level public data, Zhejiang province — bordering Shanghai —shared Sunday some of the most detailed official numbers on Covid.
The province said daily Covid infections in the region have surpassed 1 million, and will likely double to a peak of 2 million a day around New Year’s. The province has a population of about 65.4 million, more than 70% of which live in cities such as Hangzhou, home to Alibaba.
Zhejiang said fever clinics in the province have a maximum daily capacity of 600,000. Authorities said that among larger hospitals in the province, there were more than 12,000 intensive care unit beds, or 9.9% of open beds.
Monday morning traffic in Hangzhou was very light, according to Baidu data.
Travel on the rise
While people are staying home in some parts of China as infections surge, other areas in addition to Beijing are seeing a recovery in social activity.
The southwestern cities of Chengdu and Chongqing saw large jumps in road traffic to congestion levels as heavy as Beijing’s, Baidu data showed.
More people are also planning to travel.
As of Thursday, Trip.com said cross-provincial travel bookings for the upcoming New Year’s Day holiday were up by 34% from a year ago. The company said the top 10 popular tourist cities included Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou and the resort city of Sanya.
Already on Dec. 15, passenger trips at Sanya’s airport exceeded 36,000 —the highest since August, the local tourism board said.
Before the Chinese government relaxed domestic travel restrictions on Dec. 7, people tended toward nearby staycations to avoid the risk of being stranded far from home due to Covid policies.
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China markets tank as protests erupt over Covid lockdowns
Hong Kong
CNN Business
—
China’s major stock indices and its currency have opened sharply lower Monday, as widespread protests against the country’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions over the weekend roiled investor sentiment.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng
(HSI) Index fell as much as 4.2% in early trading. It has since pared some losses and last traded 2% lower. The Hang Seng
(HSI) China Enterprises Index, a key index that tracks the performance of mainland Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong, lost 2%.
In mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite briefly fell 2.2%, before trimming losses to 0.9% lower than Friday’s close. The tech-heavy Shenzhen Component Index dropped 1.1%.
The Chinese yuan, also known as the renminbi, plunged against the US dollar on Monday morning. The onshore yuan, which trades in the tightly controlled domestic market, briefly weakened 0.9%. It was last down 0.6% at 7.206 per dollar. The offshore rate, which trades overseas, dropped 0.3% to 7.212 per dollar.
The plunging yuan suggests that “investors are running ice cold on China,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner of SPI Asset Management, adding that the currency market might be “the simplest barometer” to gauge what domestic and overseas investors think.
The markets tumble comes after protests erupted across China in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country’s stringent and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy.
In the country’s biggest cities, from the financial hub of Shanghai to the capital Beijing, residents gathered over the weekend to mourn the dead from a fire in Xinjiang, speak out against zero-Covid and call for freedom and democracy.
Such widespread scenes of anger and defiance, some of which stretched into the early hours of Monday morning, are exceptionally rare in China.
Asian markets were also broadly lower. South Korea’s Kospi lost 1%, Japan’s Nikkei 225
(N225) shed 0.6%, and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell by 0.3%.
US stock futures — an indication of how markets are likely to open — fell, with Dow futures down 0.5%, or 171 points. Futures for the S&P 500 were down 0.7%, while futures for the Nasdaq dropped 0.8%.
Oil prices also dropped sharply, with investors concerned that surging Covid cases and protests in China may sap demand from one of the world’s largest oil consumers. US crude futures fell 2.7% to trade at $74.19 a barrel. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, lost 2.6% to $81.5 per barrel.
On Friday, a day before the protests started, China’s central bank cut the amount of cash that lenders must hold in reserve for the second time this year. The reserve requirement ratio for most banks (RRR) was reduced by 25 percentage points.
The move was aimed at propping up an economy that had been crippled by strict Covid restrictions and an ailing property market. But analysts don’t think the move will have a significant impact.
“Cutting the RRR now is just like pushing on a string, as we believe the real hurdle for the economy is the pandemic rather than insufficient loanable funds,” said analysts from Nomura in a research report released Monday.
“In our view, ending the pandemic [measures] as soon as possible is the key to the recovery in credit demand and economic growth,” they said.
Innes from SPI Asset Management said China’s economy is currently caught in the midst of a tug-of-war between weakening economic fundamentals and increasing reopening hopes.
“For China’s official institutions, there are no easy paths. Accelerating reopening plans when new Covid cases are rising is unlikely, given the low vaccination coverage of the elderly,” he said. “Mass protests would deeply tilt the scales in favor of an even weaker economy and likely be accompanied by a massive surge in Covid cases, leaving policymakers with a considerable dilemma.”
In the near term, he said, Chinese equities and currency will likely price in “more significant uncertainty” around Beijing’s reaction to the ongoing protests. He expects social discontent could increase in China over the coming months, testing policymakers’ resolve to stick to its draconian zero-Covid mandates.
But in the longer term, the more pragmatic and likely outcome should be “a quicker loosening of [Covid] restrictions once the current wave subsides,” he said.
Protests against China’s covid lockdowns erupt after Xinjiang fire
“There were people everywhere,” said Chen, a 29-year-old Shanghai resident who arrived at the vigil around 2 a.m. Sunday. “At first people were yelling to lift the lockdown in Xinjiang, and then it became ‘Xi Jinping, step down, Communist Party step down!’” he said, giving only his surname because of security concerns.
The immediate trigger for the demonstrations, which were also seen at universities in Beijing, Xi’an and Nanjing on Saturday, was a deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, in China’s far northwest on Thursday. Ten people, including three children, died after emergency fire services could not get close enough to an apartment building engulfed in flames. Residents blamed lockdown-related measures for hampering rescue efforts.
Officials on Friday denied that covid restrictions were a factor and said some residents’ “ability to rescue themselves was too weak,” fueling more ridicule and anger that swept across Chinese social media platforms. Residents in Urumqi, one of the most tightly controlled cities in China as a result of a broader security crackdown, turned out to protest Friday. Many waved China’s national flag and called for lockdowns to be fully lifted.
That unrest spread. On Saturday, Shanghai residents gathered for a candlelight vigil on Wulumuqi Middle Road, named after Urumqi, that turned into the demonstration. Photos sent to The Washington Post by a photographer at the scene showed protesters holding up blank sheets of paper — symbolic opposition to the country’s pervasive censorship — and placing flowers and candles for victims as the police looked on.
One person held up pieces of paper with the number ‘10’ written in Uyghur and Chinese in reference to the 10 victims in Urumqi. The crowd began passing the blank pages around.
“Everyone was holding it,” said Meng, the photographer, who gave only his surname because of safety concerns. “No one said anything, but we all knew what it meant. Delete all you want. You can’t censor what is unsaid.”
Such demonstrations are extremely rare in China, where authorities move quickly to stamp out all forms of dissent. Authorities are especially wary of protests at universities, the site of pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989 that spread across the country and ended in a bloody crackdown and massacre around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
At Communication University of China in Nanjing, posters mocking “zero covid” were taken down on Saturday, prompting one student to stand for hours holding a blank piece of paper in protest. Hundreds of students joined in solidarity.
Some placed flowers on the ground to honor the fire victims and chanted “rest in peace.” Others sang the Chinese national anthem as well as the left-wing anthem “The Internationale.” They shouted, “Long live the people!”
“I used to feel lonely, but yesterday everyone stood together,” said a 21-year-old photography student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. “I feel that we are all brave, brave enough to pursue the rights we are owed, brave enough to criticize these mistakes, brave enough to express our position.”
“The students are like a spring, pressed down every day. Yesterday, that spring bounced back up,” he said.
Videos posted on social media on Sunday show a crowd of students at Tsinghua University in Beijing holding up blank pieces of paper and chanting, “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of expression!” Through a loudspeaker, a young woman shouted, “If because we are afraid of being arrested, we don’t speak, I believe our people will be disappointed in us. As a Tsinghua student, I will regret this my whole life.”
Crowds also gathered at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, holding up their phones as part of a vigil for those who died in Urumqi, according to social media posts. Other posts show blurred-out protest slogans on campuses in four cities and two provinces.
Across the country, and not just at universities, citizens appear to be reaching a breaking point. In the name of “zero covid,” they have lived through almost three years of unrelenting controls that have left many sealed in their homes, sent to quarantine centers or barred from traveling. Residents must submit to repeated coronavirus tests and surveillance of their movement and health status.
The Urumqi fire followed a bus crash in September that killed 27 people as they were being taken to a quarantine center. In April, a sudden lockdown in Shanghai left residents without enough food and prompted online and offline protests. Deaths related to the restrictions, including a 3-year-old who died after his parents were unable to take him to a hospital, have further added to public anger.
Health authorities say this strategy of cutting off covid transmission as soon as possible and quarantining all positive cases is the only way to prevent a surge in severe cases and deaths, which would overwhelm the health-care system. As a result of its low infection rate, China’s population of 1.4 billion has a low level of natural immunity. Those who have been immunized have received domestically made vaccines that have proved less effective against the more infectious omicron variant.
The Xinjiang fire also comes after weeks of especially heightened frustration over the pandemic policies, which were loosened and then tightened again in some places amid a new surge in cases. On Sunday, China reported 39,791 new infections, its fourth consecutive day of a record number of cases.
An article in the state-run People’s Daily on Sunday called for “unswerving commitment” to the current covid policies. At a briefing Sunday, Urumqi officials said public transport would partially resume Monday as part of efforts to gradually lift lockdown measures.
In Shanghai, police eventually swarmed the location of the vigil and closed off access to the road. They clashed with protesters, pushing them into cars before dispersing the crowd around 5 a.m. At one point, the crowd tried to stop police from dragging away a man reciting a poem in honor of the victims.
Videos posted Sunday show crowds in the area shouting, “Let them go!” an apparent reference to those arrested. Chen said he saw a dozen people get arrested.
“I’m not the kind of person that is a leader,” he said, “but if there’s a chance to speak out or do something to help, I want to.”
Pei-Lin Wu and Vic Chiang in Taipei and Lyric Li in Seoul contributed to this report.
China imposes new lockdowns as local Covid cases hit record high | China
China has imposed a fresh series of Covid lockdowns, including in a city where workers at the world’s largest iPhone factory clashed with police this week, as a record daily high in coronavirus cases tests its commitment to follow the rest of the world in easing pandemic restrictions.
The national health commission reported 31,444 new locally transmitted Covid cases on Wednesday, the highest daily figure since the coronavirus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late in 2019.
The government responded by tightening Covid restrictions in cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and ordering mass testing.
In Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, where there were clashes on Tuesday and Wednesday between police and protesting workers from Foxconn’s iPhone factory, authorities announced a five-day lockdown for approximately 6 million people. Residents were ordered to stay at home and carry out daily PCR tests in a “war of annihilation” against the virus.
One worker told the AFP news agency that the protests had begun over a dispute about promised bonuses at the Foxconn factory and “chaotic” living conditions.
Foxconn, the Taiwan-based owner of the factory, which employs about 200,000 people in Zhengzhou, has been desperate to keep operations going after a handful of Covid cases forced it to lock down the facility, and it recruited new workers from across the country on favourable packages to replace the thousands who last month walked away. Employees said protests started after the company changed the terms of their pay.
Videos online showed thousands of people in masks facing rows of police in white protective suits with plastic riot shields. Police kicked and hit one protester with clubs after he grabbed a metal pole that had been used to strike him.
Many employees accepted payoffs from the company and went home on Thursday. Some said on social media that they had received bonuses of 10,000 yuan (£1,150) in return for terminating their contracts.
Foxconn apologised on Thursday for what it called “an input error in the computer system” and said it would guarantee that the pay was the same as was promised in official recruitment posters. “As for the violent incident, the company would continue to communicate with the staff and government to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” a company statement said.
The strict enforcement of China’s “dynamic zero Covid” policy for almost three years has weighed on its economy and stoked frustration among the population.
On 11 November, the government announced it would shorten quarantines and ease other restrictions, a move seen to be aimed at alleviating economic pressures and cooling public discontent. But at the same time, senior officials warned cadres not to let down their guard.
Among the new measures, Guangzhou imposed a five-day lockdown in the Baiyun district from Monday to curb the surge in cases. Residents are required to stay at home and public transport has been suspended, although areas that have not reported infections for three consecutive days could lift restrictions.
The government of the north-eastern city of Changchun, in Jilin province, urged its residents to halt non-essential movement and avoid going to public places, restaurants and public gatherings.
Shanghai tightened restrictions for arrivals to the city. A notice on the city’s official WeChat account said people travelling to the city from Thursday would be tested for Covid and barred from going to restaurants and shopping centres, among other public venues, for five days after their arrival.
Beijing has imposed new testing requirements for incoming travellers and residents. It requires a negative PCR test result within 48 hours for those seeking to enter public places such as shopping malls, hotels and government buildings. Schools across the city have moved to online classes.
Although the case numbers are relatively low compared with global figures, even small outbreaks in China often lead to lockdowns of districts and cities. Authorities this week reported China’s first Covid deaths in six months, bringing the total to 5,232.
A Zhengzhou resident who was among those scrambling to buy food in a market before the lockdown said on the social media platform Sina Weibo: “All the stalls were full of people and the prices have rocketed … no one was smiling.”
While China’s borders remain largely closed, the government has drawn up measures to facilitate the exit and entry process for foreign business executives, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press, Agence France Presse and Reuters.
Severe common cold cases increasing among young children may be pegged to COVID-19 lockdowns
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As children have headed back to school over these last few weeks, doctors have noticed an increase in severe cases of the common cold among some children from two of the most common viruses known to cause the upper respiratory infection: rhinoviruses and enteroviruses.
That’s according to a recent report out of Chicago — though the situation isn’t limited to that area.
These viruses typically only cause mild upper respiratory symptoms in healthy adults.
BERKELEY TO REQUIRE STUDENTS WHO HAVE NOT RECEIVED FLU SHOT TO MASK UP
However, “we’ve seen a larger number of young children and infants with respiratory illnesses than we usually [see] in the summer — and more children with severe illness require hospital and ICU admissions,” Dr. Czer Anthoney Lim, director of pediatric emergency medicine at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City, told Fox News Digital.
A child receives a checkup from a physician.
“What’s been interesting is that we have had kind of a potpourri of viruses,” Dr. Natalie Lambajian-Drummond of Yorkville, Ill., recently told CBS Chicago, adding that she even had to admit a child via ambulance.
While it’s possible to get a cold any time of the year, most colds occur during the winter and spring, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Common respiratory viruses
Many respiratory viruses can cause the common cold, but rhinoviruses are the most common, the CDC said.
Although there are many types of enteroviruses, most only cause mild illness, according to Cedars-Sinai’s website.
Another respiratory virus that causes common cold symptoms is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but it can cause serious disease in infants.
These viruses typically occur mostly in the summer and fall, causing the “summer flu,” but can cause other illnesses, such as a rash known as hand, foot and mouth disease.
They mostly infect children because most adults have developed immunity to them, the website added.
Another respiratory virus that causes common cold symptoms is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but it can cause serious disease in infants.
A mom checks her sick daughter’s throat.
(iStock)
“Historically, respiratory syncytial virus season began sometime in the mid-to-late fall and would extend into the early spring,” said Dr. Mike Smith, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Duke University School of Medicine.
“RSV can cause bronchiolitis — inflammation of the small airways — and cause problems breathing that require hospitalization for children in the first year of life.”
COVID-19 OR RSV? SYMPTOMS TO WATCH FOR
He told Fox News Digital that in some parts of the country, RSV season has already started this year.
“Children at higher risk of severe disease after RSV include those who were born prematurely (< 29 weeks gestational age) or have chronic lung disease, certain types of congenital heart disease, certain neuromuscular diseases and immunosuppression," he added.
He also reminded people that influenza, commonly called “the flu,” is another common respiratory virus that comes each year. “Flu shots are now available for anyone 6 months and older, so it’s important to get protected,” he said.
Common cold symptoms
Among the first symptoms of the common cold are sore throat and a runny nose, followed by coughing and sneezing, the CDC added.
Other symptoms may include headaches and body aches.
But most people get better in a week to 10 days, per the CDC.
A woman suffers from the common cold. Said Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor, “When the masks came off and kids began to interact more, we began to see more of these infections even out of season [over the summer], some mild, some more severe.”
(iStock)
“Omicron is associated with more upper respiratory symptoms than previous variants,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor and professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Siegel told Fox News Digital that this makes it harder to distinguish omicron from other upper respiratory infections, like rhinovirus, RSV and enteroviruses — especially in young children.
“In fact, when the masks came off and kids began to interact more, we began to see more of these infections even out of season [over the summer], some mild, some more severe,” he said.
GOP WELCOMES END TO ‘DISASTROUS’ POLICY OF MASKING HEAD START TODDLERS
This will now increase the possibility that other respiratory viruses are causing typical cold symptoms compared to the past two years — when many health care professionals “were associating every sore throat, every sinus infection, every cough with COVID,” Siegel added.
Common cold and COVID-19 restrictions
Traditionally, the people who get severe illness, such as pneumonia, are those “with weakened immune systems, asthma or respiratory conditions,” the CDC said.
But some young children’s immune systems have not built up the immunity to the common cold due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions.
When young kids are infected with the common cold from certain respiratory viruses, some may get more severe infections today, say medical professionals.
(iStock)
So when young children are infected with the common cold from certain respiratory viruses, some may get more severe infections. “I would say the children that are under 5 are kind of the group to watch,” Lambajian-Drummond warned on CBS.
“A lot of the younger kids we’re seeing them have been having a lot more severe courses when they get these viruses.”
Some young children’s immune systems have not built up the immunity to the common cold due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions.
“There may be multiple explanations for this uptick, including COVID-19, enterovirus D68 and diminished innate immunity,” added Lim, who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine, pediatrics and medical education at The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
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“Although COVID-19 in children generally presents as mild disease, a small number of children develop severe illness — with only 7% of children less than 5 years old vaccinated and movement towards mask optional at schools, this group becomes especially susceptible.”
He also told Fox News Digital that limited opportunities for in-person child care and school have reduced exposure to common illnesses that can build innate immunity in young children.
Epidemiology
Each year millions of Americans get the common cold, with adults averaging 2-3 colds annually. But children usually have more infections, according to the CDC.
“Common colds are the main reason that children miss school and adults miss work,” the CDC said on its website.
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There is no cure for the common cold, so treatment is directed at symptoms, per the CDC.
Prevention is key
To decrease the chance of getting a cold, the CDC recommends these simple tips: Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Avoid contact with sick people. And don’t touch the eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.
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If you or your children have cold symptoms, the agency also recommends calling your doctor for the following reasons: symptoms that persist more than 10 days; unusual or severe symptoms, such as a fever or your child is lethargic; your child is less than 3 months of age.
Shanghai enforces new COVID testing, some areas in China extend lockdowns
SHANGHAI/BEIJING, July 18 (Reuters) – Several large Chinese cities including Shanghai are rolling out new mass testing or extending lockdowns on millions of residents to counter new clusters of COVID-19 infections, with some measures being criticised on the internet.
China has reported an average of around 390 local daily infections in the seven days ending on Sunday, higher than about 340 seven days earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on official data as of Monday. read more
While that is tiny compared with a resurgence in other parts of Asia, China is adamant about implementing its dynamic zero COVID policy of eliminating outbreaks as soon as they emerge. Previously when a flare-up became a major outbreak, local officials had been compelled to take tougher measures such as month-long lockdowns, even at the cost of economic growth.
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Persistent outbreaks and more closures could add pressure on the world’s second-largest economy, which contracted sharply in the second quarter from the first after widespread COVID lockdowns jolted industrial production and consumer spending. read more
The commercial hub of Shanghai, yet to fully recover from the harsh two-month lockdown in spring and still reporting daily sporadic cases, plans to hold mass testing in many of its 16 districts and in some smaller areas where new infections had been reported recently, after similar testing last week. read more
“There is still an epidemic risk at the community level so far,” the city government said in a statement.
Shanghai reported more than a dozen new cases but none was found outside quarantined areas, local government data showed on Monday.
“I’m speechless,” said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, already subject to testing every weekend at her residential compound. “It sounds like a waste of resources that doesn’t address the real problem.”
The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, said on Monday it is again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.
In the northwestern city of Lanzhou, a lockdown in four major districts with around 3 million residents that started last week has been extended to July 24.
In the central Chinese city of Zhumadian, lockdowns for several million people in a few towns under its jurisdiction have been extended for a few days until Monday or Tuesday.
The southwestern city of Chengdu said on Monday it suspended various entertainment and cultural venues, widening such curbs over the weekend that had been limited to a few districts.
The capital Beijing, after a week of zero local infections, found two cases on Monday – one international flight crew member and the person’s roommate. Authorities have sealed affected buildings.
‘NO HUMANITY’
Authorities in the southern region of Guangxi said late on Sunday they removed two officials in the city of Beihai from their jobs for acting poorly in their COVID response.
Beihai, with a population of 1.9 million and currently clocking over 500 infections, has launched multiple rounds of mass testing and locked down some areas.
As of Sunday, over 2,000 tourists were stuck in the city.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, COVID control staffers broke down the locks of apartment doors without residents’ consent, stirring an outcry on social media over the weekend.
Authorities in one district in Guangzhou on Monday apologised to residents.
The issue was among the top trending topics on China’s Twitter-like social media Weibo.
“It’s too horrifying, too ridiculous,” wrote a Weibo user. “No humanity, no law.”
In the northeastern city of Changchun, subway passengers were told to wear N95 masks throughout their rides. Many cities including Beijing only mandate surgical masks.
Changchun has been clear of local cases since mid-May, while a smaller nearby town under its jurisdiction has reported fewer than 20 cases since July 15.
Jin Dong-yan, a virology professor at the University of Hong Kong, said N95 respirators are able to offer better protection than surgical masks during major outbreaks, but could be of low cost-efficiency in areas of low COVID risk.
“In a city without cases, N95 mask mandate would be painful and inconvenient.”
(This story corrects to show the two cases found in Beijing are not both local cases, clarifies Changchun case details, paragraphs 13, 22)
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Reporting by Roxanne Liu, Brenda Goh, Ryan Woo and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
China GDP growth slows to 0.4% after covid lockdowns
The sharp slowdown is a painful setback for China, which last year was leading the pack of major economies in its rebound from the pandemic. Since then, countries such as the United States have largely reopened. But Beijing’s leaders have doubled down on their “zero covid” approach of stamping out every outbreak through draconian measures, arguing too many will die if China were to lift restrictions and reopen.
This strategy has become increasingly controversial and economically damaging. The arrival of more infectious variants this year has meant longer and more severe lockdowns are needed to bring outbreaks to heel. The two-month lockdown of China’s most populous city, Shanghai, was particularly devastating.
Last week, China’s Premier Li Keqiang visited the coastal city of Fuzhou to meet with officials from across the southeastern industrial belt about how to stabilize the economy. According to the official Xinhua News Agency, Li said the situation was at a critical point and urged officials to steer the economy “back on track.”
Photographs in state media showed Li in meetings in Fuzhou where no one was wearing a mask, one of several maskless publicity appearances he has made recently. These have been interpreted by some as a show of support by Li toward a faster return to normalcy, even as his boss, Chinese President Xi Jinping, has declared the nation’s continued commitment to “zero covid.”
The repeated lockdowns have laid low the economy over recent months, leaving many people unemployed and underemployed, especially in service industries. The jobless rate of people ages 16 to 24 in cities reached 18.4 percent in May, the highest since Beijing started to publish the measure in 2018.
In April, not a single automobile was sold in Shanghai, with the city’s 25 million residents confined to their homes.
“The Chinese economy is in a very bad shape now,” said Tianlei Huang, research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “Consumer demand is very weak.”
Huang said he expects China to miss its target of 5.5 percent economic growth for the full year because of the severity of the lockdowns. About 4 percent will be more realistic, he said.
“Even in the most optimistic scenario, China will not be able to achieve its growth target for the full year,” he said.
The bleak picture is a far cry from a little more than a decade ago, when China was routinely posting growth close to or exceeding 10 percent.
The lockdowns have interrupted factory production, snarling supply chains and delaying the shipment of goods to the rest of the world. These supply problems have been a major driver of U.S. inflation, which has soared to 9.1 percent. Consumer prices in China are only up 2.5 percent because of depressed demand.
Shanghai started to reopen at the beginning of June, but the arrival of the BA.5 coronavirus variant is threatening new lockdowns. The northwestern city of Lanzhou has put four of its districts under a seven-day lockdown. Shanghai returned some housing complexes to lockdown, while ordering millions of people to be tested again.
“The Chinese economy in the second half of 2022 still faces the uncertainty of periodic lockdowns in response to new covid breakouts,” said Shang-Jin Wei, a finance professor at Columbia University. “If a recession breaks out in the U.S. or Europe, it will add further difficulty to the Chinese growth.”
Huang said foreign investors have been “voting with their feet” by shifting production to other countries because of the economic uncertainty. “The recent very negative outlook of the foreign business community is probably not just some noise in the short term but may have some longer-term implications,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are signs of distress in China’s housing market. An increasing number of home buyers are refusing to pay mortgages on unfinished projects, Bloomberg News reported this week, citing financial researchers, a worrying sign for banks and for the ruling Communist Party ahead of crucial leadership meetings in the fall.
China only acknowledged its economy contracting in the first quarter of 2020, as it began battling the coronavirus. Since then, the country’s statisticians have reported growth each quarter.
Independent economists take China’s official data as a general gauge, though the precision of the figures is widely distrusted. Li, the premier, once called China’s figures “man-made” and “for reference only” during a private meeting, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
Vic Chiang in Taipei, Taiwan contributed to this report.
More Chinese cities impose COVID lockdowns as ‘clusters’ spread
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The Chinese government is expanding its COVID-19 lockdown measures as more clusters of cases were discovered in the country’s eastern region.
Officials in the city of Wuxi have closed down in-person dining and many other indoor activities. Authorities are also encouraging residents to work from home and not leave the city, according to Reuters.
Officials say roughly 40 asymptomatic cases were diagnosed in the city this weekend.
That potential outbreak comes as the Anhui province has also reported nearly 300 cases, according to Reuters.
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FILE PHOTO: A medical worker in a protective suit collects a swab sample from a chef for nucleic acid testing, during lockdown, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Shanghai, China, May 13, 2022.
(REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo)
A woman in a protective suit stands on a street during lockdown, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Shanghai, China, May 26, 2022.
(REUTERS/Aly Song)
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China’s “zero COVID” approach to the pandemic means even small outbreaks result in widespread lockdowns. The policy has led to unrest in Shanghai, where lockdowns lasted for months and access to food and other daily goods became severely strained.
Government officials touted that Shanghai was COVID-free in early June, but hundreds of thousands of residents remained in lockdown nevertheless.
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Authorities in Shanghai say the city suffered more than 500,000 cases between April and the end of May.