China shuts down 24 million province Shenzhen over Kovid

the shenzhen lockdown that came after new virus With the number of cases doubling across the country to nearly 3,400, there will be three rounds of mass testing across the city. Called with short notice on Sunday, the order follows earlier restrictions on Shenzhen’s central business district and will last until March 20.

All bus and subway systems in the city were closed, as well as businesses providing non-essential services, a major Apple Inc. were prompting the supplier to stop production. Residents will be barred from leaving the city, which is home to the headquarters of tech giants Huawei Technologies Co and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Shenzhen Yantian Port remains operational despite strict COVID controls.

Apple supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., then known as Foxconn, said it was halting operations at its Shenzhen sites, one of which makes iPhones. The company, which has its China headquarters in the city, did not specify the duration of the shutdown and said it would reallocate production to other plants in the country.

In Jilin, a 24 million province in China’s northeast bordering Russia and North Korea, people have been told not to leave or travel, especially to the provincial capital Changchun and the city of Jilin, where most of the infections were found. went. , Changchun was already closed last week, forcing Toyota Motor Corp to suspend operations at its plant. Volkswagen AG said on Monday that one of its Chinese joint ventures has ceased operations at three plants in the city.

The growing clusters generated by the highly contagious Omicron variant in some of China’s most developed cities and economic regions pose an unprecedented challenge to the country’s COVID Zero strategy. The policy, which kept China virtually virus-free for a long period of time, is increasingly isolating the country as others open up. Until now, officials had largely opposed more extreme measures such as lockdowns in China’s biggest cities and relied more on targeted responses. The virus has still not died in the country since January 2021.

Why China is sticking with its COVID Zero strategy: QuickTech

The surge in infections in Shenzhen is thought to be linked to an unbridled outbreak in neighboring Hong Kong, which rose from a handful of cases in nearly a month to more than 30,000. A COVID outbreak in Shanghai has prompted most schools to restrict online learning and travel in the city. Bloomberg News reported on Friday that bus services from other provinces were halted during the weekend, and China’s aviation regulator is in discussions with airlines about turning all international flights into the financial hub.

Unimicron Technology Corp., a printed circuit-board manufacturer with operations in Shenzhen, also suspended output. Car and battery maker BYD Co. said it was seeing some impact on production at its Shenzhen campus.

Jilin’s sealing is the entire province’s first lockdown since China locked down more than 50 million people in Hubei in early 2020 to stop the spread of the COVID-19 following its emergence in the provincial capital, Wuhan. Jilin is home to one of China’s largest mineral deposits and a major agricultural region. Its industries are mainly centered around the grain, timber, car and railway sectors.

For example, China National Petroleum Corp’s refinery in Jilin produces petrochemicals and plastics that are shipped by truck to factories making automobiles and industrial parts. Any supply disruption could mean knock-on delays along auto production lines.

Cases are also being reported across China, with Omicron in Beijing and also in the nearby coastal city of Tianjin. Infections have also been reported in several cities in Jiangsu province, next to Shanghai, and in the country’s manufacturing powerhouse province, Guangdong.

Jilin has the largest outbreak with over 1,000 Covid cases in the community on Sunday and 3,868 people testing initial positive as of 12 noon on Monday.

Reminiscent of the early days of the epidemic in Wuhan, authorities are quickly building temporary hospitals in Jilin and the eastern port city of Qingdao. China abandons all COVID cases, regardless of severity, as a way to contain the spread. A Toyota joint venture plant that makes RAV4 SUVs in Changchun suspended the lockdown on Monday.

Investors reacted to the news by selling stocks related to tourism and China’s reopening, while also buying rapid antigen test-kit makers after China allowed them for general use on Friday. The Macau casino index fell as much as 10% to a record low, due to the lockdown and outbreak likely to limit gamblers from the mainland, especially neighboring Guangdong.

The Covid Zero strategy has caused disruption, with several rounds of large-scale testing in Tianjin in January halting production at another Toyota plant for more than a week. Nomura Holdings Inc. says this outlook will make it harder for Beijing to meet its economic growth target in 2022, as the cost of the measures mounts. Still, China reiterated its commitment to COVID zero on Friday, with top health official Ma Xiaowei saying stricter controls needed to be put in place and officials should avoid “battle-weary” in their work.

According to Bloomberg Economics, as of March 9, China’s 14 provinces had been declared high or medium-risk for the virus, which accounts for 54.4% of GDP.

The rise of Covid in Hong Kong has presented Beijing with an unprecedented challenge, no match for Omicron after entering the city with stringent border controls and weeks-long quarantines. Thousands left the Asian financial center to return to the mainland, with Shenzhen and Shanghai being some of the busiest entry ports.

Hong Kong’s health system and morgues are under pressure from a record outbreak, which has pushed its death rate to one of the highest in the world. While the number of virus cases in the city has dwindled over the past week, there has been an increase in the death rate, especially among the elderly, who had the lowest vaccination rates despite greater vulnerability.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam has said the Hong Kong government is still planning for mandatory testing of all its residents, including timing and how they will ensure essential operations can continue. For now, officials will focus on vaccinating older people living in care facilities — which are seeing a rise in fatalities — and increasing the number of hospital beds to treat patients, she has said.

Also a follower of Covid Zero, Hong Kong has laid bare the boundaries of the strategy, with officials scrambling through tough border security once Omicron. It seems that if the virus flared up meaningfully in the city, little had been planned for it, resulting in scenes similar to those seen in the early days of the pandemic. Hong Kong’s density and political climate have made it difficult to shut down, and officials have so far resisted calling one, despite pressure from Beijing.

rapid test

While China is publicly still committed to eliminating Covid, there are signs that the country’s health officials and experts are at least considering how they can move out of the way and endemic with the virus. can live from.

China last month approved Paxlovid, an antiviral pill developed by Pfizer Inc., seen by many as evidence of such a plan. The introduction of rapid antigen tests on Friday could also be a sign, as other countries move to the use of at-home tests after their lab-testing systems were overwhelmed by the virus’s widespread spread.

That said, any change will be slow and unlikely before 2023, given the need for stability in a politically important year for President Xi Jinping, people familiar with China’s thinking have told Bloomberg.

Zhang Wenhong, one of China’s top infectious disease experts advising the Shanghai government, said in a social media post on Monday that China needs to stick to Covid zero for now, as opening up will lead to a run on hospitals and There will be a lot of deaths.

He pointed out that a “significantly higher” number of elderly people and those with underlying diseases still haven’t been vaccinated because of concerns about the side effects of the shots. Zhang said there would be “unimaginable consequences” if the infection spread widely among them.

China has in the past expressed concern about elderly vaccination rates in some regions. Although about 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people have been fully vaccinated, he did not provide details on figures for specific age groups.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.