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,”…
Tag: Omicron variant
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…
China’s President Xi battles to save face as Covid U-turn weakens his grip on power
China’s leader Xi Jinping told his country it stands on “the right side of history” in a new year address on Saturday, but experts have warned that the president starts 2023 diminished by his chaotic U-turn on Covid strategy. He may struggle to deflect blame for the human and economic costs of zero-Covid’s failure, and control the national narrative, even if public signs of dissent are crushed. Officially, China has registered just over 5,200 deaths from Covid, but there is a yawning gap between the picture presented by the usually…
China: another Covid wave expected in rural areas after lunar new year
China is preparing for another wave of Covid to hit its more vulnerable countryside in early 2023, as the current wave of infections overwhelms hospitals and intensive care units in many cities. The lunar new year, China’s most important holiday, falls in late January. It offers a chance of reunion after years of separation under the harsh internal travel restrictions and lockdowns of the previous zero-Covid policy. But as hundreds of millions of workers head home, many are expected to take the disease with them, to areas that have fewer…
In China, here is what we want the west to know about our Covid response | Zheng Zeguang
Over the past weeks, Beijing has become the first city to go through the infection peak, and life and work are returning to normal in the capital. The Covid-19 situation in China is generally stable and controllable, and people are making plans to work, study and travel. That’s why the Chinese government has announced that, starting from 8 January, Covid-19 will be managed with measures against Class B instead of the more serious Class A infectious diseases in accordance with the law. There will also be new cross-border travel rules.…
EU states looking for joint stance on Covid testing for travellers from China
Member states of the European Union are trying to find a joint stance on how to treat travellers entering the borderless Schengen area from China, after Italy urged the rest of the economic bloc to bring back anti-Covid checks in response to Beijing’s rapid rollback of its previously stringent hygiene restrictions. In recent days more than 50% of passengers from China at Milan’s Malpensa airport have tested positive for the virus, and on Wednesday Italy brought back mandatory coronavirus tests for everyone arriving from China, after reports of rising infection…
Fears of deadly infection surge as China abandons zero-Covid policy
The portable PCR testing booth dangled in the air over a dark Beijing street, captured on camera as it was winched away by a crane in the middle of the night. The image spread rapidly across Chinese social media, the perfect symbol of the bewilderingly rapid end of a draconian era. In the face of the most widespread national protests since the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989, the Chinese government has abruptly abandoned its flagship zero-Covid policy. In Beijing, people prepared to go into shopping malls or…
China’s zero-Covid policy is not sustainable, WHO director general says
The head of the World Health Organization has voiced concerns over China’s effort to eliminate the Covid virus, in a rare rebuke to Xi Jinping’s pledge to achieve “dynamic zero-Covid”. The WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a media briefing on Tuesday that his organisation does not think China’s Covid policy is “sustainable considering the behaviour of the virus”. “We have discussed about this issue with Chinese experts and we indicated that the approach will not be sustainable … I think a shift would be very important,” he…
Beijing residents stock up on food amid Covid lockdown fears – video
Beijing residents have rushed to buy food, emptying supermarket shelves, as Covid-19 cases rise and fears grow that a strict lockdown could be imposed. China reported 3,266 symptomatic cases on Monday and 20,454 asymptomatic cases, with Beijing registering 19 cases, including 14 symptomatic. Some fear a lockdown similar to Shanghai’s, which is in its fourth week and has led to food shortages and delivery delays The Guardian
Covid lockdown fears spark panic buying in Beijing as largest district begins mass testing
Beijingers were flooding supermarkets to stock up on food on Monday, hoping to avoid Shanghai-style shortages in the case of a city-wide lockdown as the capital records a growing number of Covid infections. Authorities in Beijing have ordered 3.5 million residents and workers in the biggest district of Chaoyang to report for three coronavirus tests this week, after the area recorded 26 of Beijing’s 47 symptomatic cases since Friday. On Monday, China reported 3,266 symptomatic cases and 20,454 asymptomatic cases. The majority were in Shanghai, where 19,455 were reported. Beijing…