Tag: Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

Why China’s Economy Faces a Perilous Road to Recovery

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Many European manufacturers in China have been forced to operate with about half their usual staff for two to three weeks, affecting output somewhat, said Klaus Zenkel, the chairman of the chamber’s South China chapter. As a precaution against lockdowns, many companies had accumulated spare parts in warehouses before the Covid wave and have relied on those to keep running. But to save on costs, a few small suppliers of specific components have stopped operations early for the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on Jan. 21. “Everyone managed a…

China’s Young Elite Clamber for Government Jobs. Some Come to Regret It.

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In Beijing and cities across China, as many as 2.6 million job applicants, including graduates from the country’s top universities, will report to testing centers in early January to face exceedingly long odds and compete for 37,100 entry-level government jobs. The national exam is an annual rite for young Chinese, some of whom spend thousands of dollars for prep classes and many hours cramming for it. It comes at a fraught time. It was supposed to be given in early December, then was canceled at the last minute. The government…

‘OK, Mexico, Save Me’: After China, This Is Where Globalization May Lead

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As American companies recalibrate the risks of relying on Chinese factories to make their goods, some are shifting business to a country far closer to home: Mexico. The unfolding trend known as “near-shoring” has drawn the attention of no less than Walmart, the global retail empire with headquarters in Arkansas. Early last year, when Walmart needed $1 million of company uniforms — more than 50,000 in one order — it bought them not from its usual suppliers in China but from Preslow, a family-run apparel business in Mexico. It was…

How Bad Is China’s Covid Outbreak? It’s a Scientific Guessing Game.

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As Covid barrels through China, scientists around the world are searching for clues about an outbreak with sprawling consequences — for the health of hundreds of millions of Chinese people, the global economy and the future of the pandemic. But in the absence of credible information from the Chinese government, it is a big scientific guessing game to determine the size and severity of the surge in the world’s most populous country. In Hong Kong, one team of researchers pored over passenger data from five Beijing subway lines to determine…

China Covid: U.S. Testing Rule Meets a Collective Shrug

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Some Chinese were disappointed by the Biden administration’s new testing requirement for travelers coming from their country. Others radiated contempt, calling it the latest Western effort to contain China’s rise. But many were simply indifferent. For many Chinese, the U.S. rule that they must present negative Covid tests to visit is a tangential development. China is grappling with severe outbreaks that have sickened countless people and overwhelmed hospitals and funeral parlors. Many are focused on trying to hold on to their jobs and homes as the economy sputters. And to…

As China Drops Travel Rules, Wariness Rises Over its Covid Outbreak

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For the past three years, China largely shut its borders and kept its people home, retreating from the global engagement that was the foundation for its rise. As the country now prepares to gradually reopen its doors to help rescue a faltering economy, the world is both excited about the potential boon for business and tourism, but wary about exposure to a country facing an explosion of Covid cases. Starting Jan. 8, China will drop its strict quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from abroad and lift rules that had limited…

U.S. Announces New Covid Test Requirements for Travelers From China

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The Biden administration announced on Wednesday that travelers from China, Hong Kong and Macau must present negative Covid-19 tests before entering the United States, a move that it says is intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The announcement, by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, came amid growing concern over a surge of cases in China and the country’s lack of transparency about the outbreak there. This is a developing story. Check back for updates. NYT

China’s New Covid Chapter

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China’s Covid outbreak appears to be going from bad to worse. In recent days, local governments have reported hundreds of thousands of infections a day. Sick patients are crowding hospital hallways, videos obtained by The Times showed. In a video from The Associated Press, a medical worker at a hospital in Zhuozhou, a city near Beijing, asked that a patient be taken elsewhere because the facility was out of oxygen. “China’s medical system is already fragile even in the best of times — people rely on hospital E.R.s for even…

‘Tragic Battle’: On the Front Lines of China’s Covid Crisis

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Slumped in wheelchairs and lying on gurneys, the sickened patients crowd every nook and cranny of the emergency department at the hospital in northern China. They cram into the narrow spaces between elevator doors. They surround an idle walk-through metal detector. And they line the walls of a corridor ringing with the sounds of coughing. China’s hospitals were already overcrowded, underfunded and inadequately staffed in the best of times. But now with Covid spreading freely for the first time in China, the medical system is being pushed to its limits.…

China to Drop Covid Quarantine for Incoming Travelers

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China on Monday announced that travelers from overseas would no longer be required to enter quarantine upon arrival, in one of the country’s most significant steps toward reopening since the coronavirus pandemic began. From Jan. 8, incoming travelers will be required to show only a negative polymerase chain reaction, or P.C.R., test within 48 hours before departure, China’s National Health Commission said. Limitations on the number of incoming flights will also be eased. The travel restrictions had isolated the world’s most populous country for nearly three years. Foreigners were essentially…