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China struggles with anti-Covid measures as cases hit new record
Rising infections across the country are challenging Chinese authorities who want to shift away from city-wide lockdowns to more targeted measures that are less disruptive to residents and businesses
Beijing: China on Friday reported another day of record high daily Covid-19 infections as local governments struggled to control the ongoing Omicron-driven outbreak through lockdowns and restrictions, while addressing the increasing pushback from frustrated citizens.
Millions of Chinese citizens, especially in large cities like Beijing in the north, Guangzhou in the south and Chongqing in the southwest, have been asked to stay home for the weekend with at least 32,695 new local infections recorded for Thursday on Friday, the highest since the pandemic started.
A number of other cities are conducting mass testing and implementing targeted lockdowns as authorities return to previous Covid control protocols, despite promising the easing of restrictions just two weeks ago.
The capital city, Beijing, recorded its own daily high of infections, reporting over 1,800 cases on Friday for the day before. Its caseload is expected to rise further in the coming days.
Millions of Beijing residents stayed home on Friday, stepping out only for Covid-19 tests as many subdistrict authorities implemented temporary lockdowns though without formal declarations.
A majority of the city’s 22 million residents started three new rounds of mass nucleic acid tests on Friday.
Panic buying of essential supplies was reported from across the city as residents expected the “three-day static management” to extend into next week.
Residents in apartment complexes formed groups on WeChat to exchange information about the situation, and to coordinate bulk buying of supplies, where needed.
“At present, the number of new cases of the epidemic in Beijing continues to grow at a high level, the number of social cases (infections logged outside centralised quarantine) is increasing, and the prevention and control situation is more severe and complicated,” Xu Hejian, a spokesperson of the Beijing government said at a press conference on Friday.
The city’s authorities said they have made efforts to ensure the city’s daily supply of meat, eggs, vegetables and other daily necessities, according to state media.
With more than 12,000 cases reported in the latest outbreak between November 1-25, Beijing is in the most complicated phase of its fight against the spread of Covid-19. It has reported more than 1,000 new infections every day since November 21, a first for the capital.
10 deaths in apartment fire blamed on curbs
At least 10 people were killed, and nine others injured in a fire at a residential high-rise in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Thursday night.
Videos and posts widely shared on Twitter and Chinese social media, until they were censored, suggested that fire trucks were allegedly blocked from entering the compound because of restrictions under China’s “zero-Covid” policy. One video showed workers uprooting barricades for the trucks to enter.
The fire broke out on Thursday night at a residential building in the community of Tianshan District in Urumqi. The blaze was put out in about three hours, officials said.
Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
French chamber of commerce protests Covid policy
In a rare public complaint, the French chamber of commerce in China has urged the government to properly implement Covid-10 “optimisation” measures it announced two weeks ago.
The statement was widely shared on social media after the French embassy posted it on its Twitter-like Weibo account on Thursday.
The 20 measures, which include shortened quarantines and other more targeted Covid-19 control steps, had “given hope” to French companies for more bilateral trade and economic exchanges, but “good policies also need to be implemented in a uniform manner and without adding layers of other contradicting policies”, the chamber’s statement, quoted by Reuters, said.
