A fifth of the economy in lockdown

As the Beijing Health Commission announced on Friday, about 32,700 new cases were reported. The number of daily new infections has more than tripled in two weeks.

Far-reaching movement restrictions apply in cities with more than a million inhabitants, such as Beijing, the heavily affected southern Chinese city of Guangzhou or Chongqing. In the capital, restaurants, shops and schools were closed – only supermarkets and markets were still open for groceries. Employees must work in the home office. Beijing’s 21 million people were asked not to leave their homes if possible.

The effects on the world’s second-largest economy are huge: experts from Japanese financial group Nomura estimate that just over a fifth of China’s economic output was affected by the lockdown – twice as much as in October, according to the financial bureau Bloomberg reported. The previous high number of new infections in April had already been exceeded the day before. At that time, the eastern Chinese port metropolis of Shanghai went into a strict lockdown for two months.

While the rest of the world has long lived with the virus, China remains steadfast in its strict zero-Covid strategy. In individual cases, residential areas are cordoned off. Contacts come to quarantine camps. Infected people are isolated in the hospital. The country has also been in lockdown for a long time. Visas are rarely issued. Those entering the country must be quarantined in special hotel rooms for at least five days – but usually eight days.

Every day there are massive tests that put an extreme strain on local government finances. To get into supermarkets, for example in Beijing, a negative PCR test, usually from the last 24 hours, must be proven. Other places require tests from the past 48 hours. Long queues form at test stations every day.

The new omicron variants, which spread more easily and thus undermine preventive measures in China, have been blamed for the rapid increase in infections.

(SDA)