China reported an average of about 390 local daily infections in the seven days ending Sunday, up from about 340 seven days earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on official data from Monday. read more While this is small compared to the resurgence in other parts of Asia, China is adamant in applying the dynamics of its zero-covid policy to stamp out outbreaks as soon as they occur. Previously, when an outbreak became a major outbreak, local officials were forced to take tougher measures such as month-long lockdowns, even at the expense of economic growth. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Persistent outbreaks and more shutdowns could add pressure to the world’s second-largest economy, which shrank sharply in the second quarter from the first after widespread COVID-19 lockdowns rocked industrial production and consumer spending. read more The commercial hub of Shanghai, which has yet to fully recover from a harsh two-month lockdown in the spring and is still reporting sporadic cases daily, plans to conduct mass testing in many of its 16 districts and some smaller areas where new cases have recently been reported. . after similar tests last week. read more “There is still a risk of an outbreak at the community level so far,” the city government said in a statement. Shanghai reported more than a dozen new cases, but none outside the quarantined areas, local government data showed on Monday. “I am speechless,” said a Shanghai resident surnamed Wang, who is already undergoing tests every weekend in her apartment complex. “Sounds like a waste of resources that doesn’t address the real problem.” The northern city of Tianjin, which has launched several rounds of mass testing in recent months to contain previous outbreaks, said on Monday it was retesting its more than 12 million residents after two local infections. In the northwestern city of Lanzhou, the lockdown in four major districts of about 3 million residents that began last week has been extended to July 24. In the central Chinese city of Zhumadian, lockdowns for several million people in some cities under its jurisdiction were extended for a few days until Monday or Tuesday. The southwestern city of Chengdu announced on Monday that it had suspended several entertainment and cultural venues, expanding such weekend restrictions that had been limited to a few districts. The capital Beijing, after a week of zero local infections, detected two cases on Monday – an international flight crew member and the person’s roommate. Authorities sealed off the affected buildings.
‘NO HUMANITY’
Authorities in the southern region of Guangxi said late Sunday that they had suspended two officials in the city of Beihai from their jobs for acting poorly in their response to COVID. Beihai, which has a population of 1.9 million and currently has more than 500 infections, has launched multiple rounds of mass testing and locked down some areas. As of Sunday, more than 2,000 tourists were stuck in the city. In the southern city of Guangzhou, COVID control officials broke the locks on apartment doors without residents’ consent, sparking an outcry on social media over the weekend. The authorities of a neighborhood in Guangzhou apologized to residents on Monday. The topic was among the top trending topics on China’s Weibo social media. “It’s too scary, too ridiculous,” one Weibo user wrote. “Neither humanity, nor law.” In the northeastern city of Changchun, subway passengers were asked to wear N95 masks during their rides. Many cities, including Beijing, only mandate surgical masks. Changchun has had no local cases since mid-May, while a smaller nearby city under its jurisdiction has reported fewer than 20 cases since July 15. Jin Dong-yan, professor of virology at the University of Hong Kong, said N95 respirators are able to offer better protection than surgical masks during large outbreaks, but could be low-cost in low-risk COVID areas. “In a city without cases, the N95 mask mandate would be painful and inconvenient.” (This story corrects to show that the two cases found in Beijing are not both local cases, details of the Changchun case clarifies, paragraphs 13, 22) Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Roxanne Liu, Brenda Goh, Ryan Woo and Shanghai newsroom. Edited by Jacqueline Wong and Muralikumar Anantharaman Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
