Heathrow airport had its busiest start to the year since before the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in 2020 as travel restrictions continued to ease, according to data published on Monday. More than 5.4 million passengers travelled through the UK’s and Europe’s busiest airport in January, double the 2.6 million from 2022, Heathrow said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange. In January 2020 the airport had recorded its best ever start to the year, with 6.1 million passengers, despite early signs that the virus was spreading rapidly from China, where…
Tag: Coronavirus
Australia news live: treasurers to discuss cost-of-living crisis, no Chinese spy balloons over Australia, defence says
<gu-island name="KeyEventsCarousel" deferuntil="visible" props="{"keyEvents":[{"id":"63e4df058f0827de574907dc","elements":[{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":" Good morning and welcome to our rolling coverage of the Australian news day. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the main overnight breaking stories before my colleague Natasha May takes the reins. ","elementId":"74fdb06d-f351-4b9e-87d2-6311d68007d5"},{"_type":"model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement","html":" We have a cracking exclusive story this morning about how the former energy minister Angus Taylor asked his department to consider delaying telling voters about electricity price rises before the May election, then made the decision to do so anyway. He later claimed he didn’t know about the rises. And it turns out Scott…
Elderly Chinese people protest in Wuhan against medical benefits cuts
Thousands of older people have staged a rally in the rain in central China to protest against significant cuts to their medical benefits, in the latest outburst of public discontent since nationwide protests against Covid curbs gripped the country late last year. Video clips on social media show a large crowd of elderly protesters in raincoats and holding umbrellas gathering outside the Wuhan city government by the Yangtze River on Wednesday, while police officers form a line to stop them from approaching the gates. The location of the rally has…
‘We just want to live in a normal world’: China’s young protesters speak out, and disappear
Cao Zhixin was an ordinary young woman with no political ambition, but a fateful decision to take to the streets one night last year has inadvertently turned her into the face of resistance in China. “She was just a girl who was keen on books, she didn’t have great ambitions,” says a close friend who spoke to the Guardian but requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “She said all she wanted was a husband, kids and a warm bed.” But on the night of 27 November, driven by anger over…
China claims Covid wave is ‘coming to an end’ as tourism and factory activity rebound
China’s wave of Covid is “coming to an end”, health officials have claimed, saying there had been no sign of a new surge from the lunar new year holiday period, despite a big increase in travel compared to last year. Government figures released on Tuesday showed big rises in tourism and hospitality activity compared to the same time last year. Factory activity has also rebounded for the first time in four months, an early sign of economic return after the country reported its slowest growth in about half a century…
‘It was all for nothing’: Chinese count cost of Xi’s snap decision to let Covid rip
When Sunny* thinks back to March last year, she laughs ruefully at the ordeal. The 19-year-old Shanghai student spent that month locked in her dormitory, unable to shop for essentials or wash clothes, even banned from showering for two weeks over Covid fears. In April, the entire city locked down. It was the beginning of the chaos of 2022, as local Chinese authorities desperately tried to follow President Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid decree while facing the most virulent strain of the virus yet: Omicron. “Everyone was panicking, no one was ready,”…
China claims Covid wave has peaked with severe cases, deaths falling fast
China’s health authorities have said the Covid wave is past its peak, with rapid decline in both severe cases and deaths in hospitals, but experts remain wary of the government’s official data. According to China’s Center for Disease Control (CDC), the number of critically ill patients in hospital peaked in the first week of January, then rapidly declined by more than 70%. The number of deaths also reached its highest level that week, the data said. Prof Chi Chun-huei, director of the centre for global health at Oregon University, said…
Eight in 10 people in China caught Covid since early December, say officials
About 80% of China’s population has been infected with Covid-19 since restrictions were lifted in early December, Chinese health authorities have said. The figure, which would equate to about 1.2 billion people but cannot be confirmed by outside bodies, prompted some pandemic experts to estimate that more than 1 million may have died – far more than the government’s official tally of about 72,000. A wave of Omicron cases engulfed China after the government abruptly ended its zero-Covid policy last December, lifting restrictions shortly before the start of the lunar…
Xi’s authority dented by sudden Covid U-turn but iron grip on power is undimmed
Just a few months ago, the thought of questioning the strength of Xi Jinping’s leadership was inconceivable. He had just secured his third term, conducted a brutal purge of factional rivals and ensured he and his beliefs were inextricably and existentially tied with the Chinese Communist party. The zero-Covid policy – despite some societal grumblings – had been enshrined as the best and only way out of the pandemic. But zero Covid was already growing unpopular in China in the latter half of 2022. It was playing havoc with people’s…
中国读者们：告诉我们新冠病毒如何影响了您
农历年将至，医学专家预期疫情将会迅速蔓延。中国当局表示自 12 月 8 日取消清零政策以来，中国医院已有将近6万例与新冠病毒染疫相关的死亡。 我们希望听到中国大陆的读者的分享他们自12月份以来的经历。您或您的亲人感染过了吗？我们想知道您的经历和您对当前情况的看法。 要是您的亲友在疫情中去世，您可以写下您对他们的缅怀，或跟我们分享您对他们的回忆及他们对您有多重要。 如果您年满 18 岁，您可以通过加密应用程序 Signal并拨打 +44(0)7766780300 联系卫报– 或者通过 WhatsApp 点击此处 （clicking here) 或添加 +44(0)7766780300。 您可以填写下面的加密表格与我们联系。您的回复是安全的，因为表单是加密的，只有卫报会看到您的回应，我们的一名记者可能会和您联系以获取更多信息, 所以希望您可以留下您的联系方式。 我们只会将您提供给我们的数据用于撰写文章。当我们不再需要时，我们将删除任何个人数据。有关更多信息，请参阅我们的服务条款（terms of service) 和隐私政策 (privacy policy)。 请注意，虽然我们希望收到您的来信，但您的安全是最重要的。我们明白记录或分享您的经历可能并不总是安全或合适的——因此在考虑是否与卫报联系时请考虑这一点。 IP地址将记录在第三方Web服务器上，因此为了实现真正的匿名性，请使用我们的安全投送服务，但是，如果您愿意继续，提交到以下表单的任何内容都将被加密和保密。 <gu-island name="UnsafeEmbedBlockComponent" deferuntil="visible" props="{"html":"Online Form – China Covid","alt":"China Covid","index":8,"isTracking":false,"isMainMedia":false,"source":"Formstack","sourceDomain":"guardiannewsandmedia.formstack.com"}”> 如果您在使用表单时遇到问题，请单击此处 （here)。 在此处阅读服务条款。 The Guardian