Several large Chinese cities, including Shanghai, are on alert due to new clusters of COVID-19 infections, rolling out repeated mass testing or extending lockdowns on millions of residents, with some measures triggering a public outcry.
China has reported an average of about 390 local daily infections in the seven days ending on Sunday, higher than about 340 seven days earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on official data as of yesterday. That is tiny compared with a resurgence in other parts of Asia.
China is adamant about implementing its dynamic “zero COVID” policy of eliminating outbreaks as soon as they emerge. Previously, when a flare-up became a major outbreak, local officials had been compelled to take tougher measures such as month-long lockdowns, even at the cost of economic growth.
Photo: Reuters
Persistent outbreaks and more closures could add pressure on the world’s second-largest economy, which contracted sharply in the second quarter from the first after widespread COVID-19 lockdowns jolted industrial production and consumer spending.
Shanghai, yet to fully recover from the harsh two-month lockdown in spring and still reporting daily sporadic cases, plans to hold mass testing in many of its 16 districts and in some smaller areas where new infections had been reported recently, after similar testing last week.
“There is still an epidemic risk at the community level so far,” the city government said in a statement.
Shanghai reported more than a dozen new cases, but none was found outside quarantined areas, local government data showed.
“I’m speechless,” said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, already subject to testing every weekend at her residential compound. “It sounds like a waste of resources that doesn’t address the real problem.”
The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, yesterday said it was again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.
In the central Chinese city of Zhumadian, lockdowns for more than 1 million people in two towns under its jurisdiction are extended for a few days until today.
Temporary lockdowns for more than 3 million people in four other towns had been extended to yesterday. Zhumadian continues to report dozens of cases daily, despite curbs last week.
The southwestern city of Chengdu yesterday said it suspended various entertainment and cultural venues, widening such curbs over the weekend that had been limited to a few districts.
Beijing, after a week of zero local infections, yesterday found two local cases — one international flight crew member and the person’s roommate. Authorities have sealed up affected buildings.
In the southern city of Guangzhou, COVID-19 control staffers broke down the locks of apartment doors without residents’ consent, stirring an outcry on social media over the weekend.
Authorities in one district in Guangzhou yesterday apologized to residents.
Newly married and with his first child on the way, auto worker Wang (王) wanted to move into the apartment he bought in Wuhan three years ago, but those hopes were dashed by China’s ballooning property crisis. Saddled with nearly US$300,000 in debt and with his unit nowhere near completion, the 34-year-old decided he had enough and stopped making mortgage payments. He is among numerous home buyers across dozens of cities in China who have boycotted payments over fears that their properties will not be completed by cash-strapped, debt-laden developers. “They said construction would resume soon,” Wang said, only giving his surname. “But
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