Macau, which is suffering its worst Covid-19 outbreak to date, announced on Saturday a week-long closure of all non-essential businesses, including casinos, from Monday. Xi’an, a city of 13 million people that has been under severe lockdown this year, went into a “circuit breaker” last week to get rid of the BA.5 sub-variant. Eleven Chinese cities are now under full or partial lockdown, affecting 114.8 million people, or 8.1 percent of the population, according to data released last week by Japanese investment bank Nomura. Analysts said the cycle of outbreaks, mass testing, lockdowns and easing would continue under President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-Covid policy, although authorities were trying to implement more targeted measures such as shorter quarantines and limited lockdowns. according to analysis by Goldman Sachs. Macau’s Casino Lisboa, owned by the late gambling tycoon Stanley Ho’s SJM Holdings, was temporarily sealed off on Tuesday with 500 people inside after being linked to a cluster of 13 cases. Hotels, including Melco’s Grand Hyatt and Sands China’s Sheraton, have been turned into quarantine facilities. The cycle of restrictions also continued to weigh on China’s economy. Data released Saturday by the Office for National Statistics showed that consumer prices rose 2.5 percent year-on-year in June due to higher energy and pork prices, up from 2.1 percent in May. Factory price growth eased, rising 6.1 percent in June from a year earlier, the slowest pace in 15 months. Shanghai ordered a mass testing campaign after a cluster of more than 70 Covid cases was linked to a karaoke bar © Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Shanghai, China’s financial hub, is also struggling to contain cases weeks after reopening from a two-month lockdown, with a mass testing campaign ordered after a cluster of more than 70 cases was linked to a karaoke bar, local authorities said . Officials have begun assigning risk levels to sub-districts and even streets in a bid to impose targeted residential quarantines and spare most of the city’s 26 million residents. Just one new case was reported outside quarantine on Saturday, while 59 cases were reported among people already in quarantine. However, tension remains high. A Shanghai resident who asked not to be named told the Financial Times she felt “disappointment” and “disappointment” at the return of the restrictions. The resident, who works for an international company, endured the lockdown in March and April. “Personally, I guess this will be the ‘new normal,’” he said. Beijing was forced to drop its vaccination mandate for public spaces after a popular backlash forced officials to scrap the rule less than two days after it was announced last week.

Nearly 90 percent of China’s 1.4 billion people have received two doses of the vaccine, according to state media, but the rate for the elderly is much lower. Domestic vaccines using inactivated virus technology are also less effective than mRNA vaccines produced by companies such as BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna. Chinese authorities have not approved foreign mRNA vaccines, and domestic mRNA candidates remain in testing stages. Meanwhile, Hong Kong warned of a two-fold jump in infections within weeks after recording more than 3,000 new cases on Thursday, the highest daily figure since April. The increase came as local authorities said they were considering reopening the border with the mainland and shortening the mandatory quarantine on arrivals, which has stifled the city’s business community. Hong Kong this week also scrapped a controversial no-fly mechanism that had seen 100 flights blocked this year. Elsewhere in Asia, case counts have reached recent highs as countries eased entry restrictions in a bid to encourage tourism and boost local economies. Indonesia reported more than 2,800 cases on Thursday, the highest number in more than three months. The government said it would require tourists to have received a booster shot. Singapore, which has seen an influx of expatriates from regional rival Hong Kong, reported more than 12,000 cases on Tuesday, but authorities in the city-state have played down the possibility of new measures. Additional reporting by Edward White in Wellington, Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong, John Reed in New Delhi and Oliver Telling in Singapore