China’s government has locked down Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million people, as it tries to contain its worst ever Covid-19 outbreak across multiple provinces, with case numbers tripling from Saturday to Sunday.
All businesses in the finance and technology hub, which borders Hong Kong, were ordered to close or work from home unless they supplied food, utilities, or other necessities, according to a government notice on Sunday. It said all residential communities were now under “closed management”, meaning they would be locked down. Every resident would undergo three rounds of testing, for which they were allowed to leave their homes, and all buses and subways were suspended.
No one can leave the city except in special circumstances and with a negative test result obtained within 24 hours prior to exit. Local communities and residences had established monitoring teams with a “warm-hearted service hotline”, it said.
The restrictions are due to stay in place until at least 20 March, adding Shenzhen to a number of other cities under various restrictions, including China’s most populous city Shanghai, and the northeastern city of Changchun in Jilin province. Of the 1,938 new cases confirmed on Sunday, more than 1,400 were in Jilin. Some residents of Cangzhou, south of Beijing, were also told to stay home after nine cases were reported there, according to a government notice.
In Jilin 831 new cases were reported in Changchun, 571 in the nearby Jilin City and 150 in the eastern port city of Qingdao. Authorities in the province are stepping up anti-disease measures after concluding their earlier response was inadequate, according to Zhang Yan, deputy director of the provincial Health Commission.
“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not sound enough,” Zhang said at a news conference. The mayor and deputy Party chief of Jilin city, the director of the Changchun health commission, and the Party chief at a Jilin university are among at least 26 officials sacked or punished for their alleged poor responses to the current outbreak, state media reported.
The case numbers reported among China’s 1.4 billion people are low compared to other countries, but represent the country’s worst outbreak so far. China’s zero-Covid strategy of swiftly crushing outbreaks through resource-intensive mass testing and lockdowns has so far been successful. However, as in other countries, the emergence of the Omicron strain – a more transmissible variant of the virus – has challenged defences. Chinese authorities have for the first time approved antigen self-testing products to supplement the government-run nucleic acid testing.
China is among just a few governments around the world which remain committed to the zero tolerance approach. Across the strait, Taiwan is reporting just a few – or zero – daily community cases and appears to have contained Omicron outbreaks. It is maintaining its strict border controls, and some social restrictions, and is yet to be faced with a large-scale Omicron outbreak.
In Hong Kong the variant has overwhelmed the city and its government’s insistence on sticking to a strategy of elimination over mitigation. On Sunday it reported more than 32,400 cases. Hospitals have been swamped, with patient beds in lobbies and carparks. As of last week Hong Kong had the highest death rate in the developed world, inflaming criticism of the government for failing to adequately prepare for a large-scale outbreak during the two years of being largely Covid-free.
“People should not get the wrong impression that the virus situation is now under control,” said Dr Albert Au, an expert with the government’s Center for Health Protection. “Once we let our guard down, it’s possible that (infections) will bounce back and rise again.”
Zhang Wenhong, China’s top infectious disease expert, on Monday warned Hong Kong’s outbreak was in the “early stage of an exponential rise”, and said it was inevitable that some would panic but people should retain confidence in the effectiveness of lockdowns, testing, and restrictions. “As long as we slow down, the virus will not be fast,” he said.
Zhang said opening up would be “disastrous” for China, with many elderly people unvaccinated, but once the outbreak was contained there must be a “moderate and sustainable” lasting strategy.
“We must take advantage of the rare opportunity period and window period brought about by the inevitable social reset, and prepare more complete, smart, and sustainable coping strategies,” he said.
Additional reporting by Xiaoqian Zhu
