China set out urgent plans to protect rural communities from COVID-19 yesterday, as millions of city-dwellers planned holidays for the first time in years after Beijing abandoned its stringent system of lockdowns and travel curbs.
There is particular concern about China’s hinterland in the run up to China’s Lunar New Year holiday starting on Jan. 22.
Rural areas are likely to be inundated with travelers returning to their hometowns and villages, which have had little exposure to the virus during the three years since the pandemic started.
Photo: AFP
The Chinese National Health Commission yesterday said it was ramping up vaccinations and building stocks of ventilators, essential drugs and test kits in rural areas. It also advised travelers to reduce contact with elderly relatives.
China’s international borders remain largely shut, but recent decisions to abandon testing prior to domestic travel and disable apps that tracked people’s journey history have allowed people to move around the country.
One of China’s most populous provinces, Henan, canceled all holidays for healthcare staff until the end of March to ensure “a smooth transition” as COVID-19 restrictions ease, state media reported on Thursday.
Multiple cities across the country of 1.4 billion people opened new vaccination sites to encourage the public to take booster shots, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported.
“Go all out” was the message from China’s state asset regulator in a statement late on Thursday that urged government-owned drugmakers to ensure supplies of medicines related to COVID-19 would meet “the rapid increase” in demand.
SF Express, one of China’s largest courier services, said on its official WeChat account that it had sent workers from across the country to keep deliveries going in Beijing amid staff shortages and soaring demand.
It had started a “fast track” for emergency shipments such as medicines and daily necessities, with demand in the capital 300 percent above normal levels, it said.
The COVID-19 scare in China also led people in Hong Kong, Macau and in some neighborhoods in Australia to search for fever medicines and test kits for family and friends in China.
Many Chinese are resigned to catching the virus at some point.
“Everyone will get it, I guess,” a 29-year-old Beijing resident surnamed Du said.
Analysts said that China could pay a price for letting the virus rapidly rip through a population that lacks “herd immunity” and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.
That has dented the prospects for near-term growth, even if the opening up should eventually help revive China’s battered economy, they said.
JPMorgan yesterday revised down its expectations for China’s growth this year to 2.8 percent, which is well below China’s official target of 5.5 percent, and would mark one of China’s worst performances in about half a century.
“Arduous efforts” are needed to sustain the recovery in growth due to an adverse external environment and the global economy’s loss of momentum, the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission said.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
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