Nearly 30 million Chinese in lockdown: facing the worst outbreak of the epidemic since the first wave of 2020, China is increasing quarantine measures without being able to neutralize the Omicron variant.
China officially announced today 5,280 new cases of Covid-19 during the last 24 hours, double the previous day. It’s one of the highest daily scores since February 2020 and the lockdown in Wuhan, the city where the epidemic was first identified.
In Beijing, where only six new cases have been reported, residents are stepping up health pass checks.
Since the spring of 2020, China had faced the epidemic by resorting to strict lockdown measures, but the Omicron variant has created a plethora of outbreaks across the country in recent months.
If the numbers of the epidemic officially announced in China remain low compared to the rest of the world, they remain high for the country data.
China has officially recorded only 120,000 cases of Covid (excluding asymptomatic cases) since the outbreak began and has reported only 4,636 deaths.
The last death attributed to the virus was officially recorded in early 2021.
Call for vaccination of the elderly
During a press conference, health authorities called for older people to be vaccinated, as a large number of unvaccinated elderly people in Hong Kong have succumbed to Covid in recent weeks.
In mainland China, only 80% of people over the age of 60 have received two doses of the vaccine, according to authorities.
In just a few days, at least 13 cities have been quarantined. According to AFP estimates, some 30 million Chinese are now under house arrest, particularly in the technology metropolis of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong.
Restrictive measures have shut down many factories, such as the units of Taiwanese Foxconn, Apple’s main supplier, in the big city of 17 million people.
The economic turmoil, which could further affect global supply chains, has led to a 6% drop in the Hong Kong stock market, mainly in the technology sector.
Rising unemployment
“So far, the ports of Shenzhen and Shanghai continue to operate normally. But the application of restrictive measures in these ports would escalate global supply problems, increasing the unrest already caused by the war in Ukraine,” said economist Tommy Wu. Oxford Economics.
As a sign of the fragile economic situation, unemployment (which in China is estimated only in urban areas) increased in the first two months of the year to 5.5% from 5.1% in December.
But the resurgence of the epidemic is initially centered on the other side of China: the current toll is borne out by the numbers of the epidemic in Jilin Province (northeast), which borders North Korea, which authorities say “has not been affected by the Covid epidemic. More than 3,000 cases of the disease have been officially reported in Jilin County in the last 24 hours.
Shanghai, China’s largest city, has announced only nine new cases, but authorities have imposed lockdown measures in many neighborhoods of the city.
Many domestic flights were canceled today at Shanghai and Beijing airports.
Source: ΑΠΕ-ΜΠΕ
Source: Capital
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