Topline
An emerging outbreak of Covid-19 cases in Shanghai has prompted officials to initiate mass testing in more than half of the city’s neighborhoods while infection surges in other parts of China triggered partial lockdowns, raising concerns of further economic disruptions in the country which has continued to hold firm on implementing its zero-Covid strategy.
People line up at a nucleic acid screening center at Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai, China.
Key Facts
According to China’s National Health Commission, Shanghai reported 24 new cases on Tuesday—its largest single-day figure in several weeks—in an outbreak that has been linked to a karaoke bar in the city.
Officials have begun carrying out mass testing in nine of Shanghai’s 16 districts along with select neighborhoods in three other districts, Reuters reports.
The outbreak has prompted fears of another major lockdown in China’s financial hub causing the Shanghai SE Composite Index and China’s CSI 300 Index to fall by more than 1.4% in afternoon trading.
China’s capital Beijing which faced a small outbreak last month has continued to carry out mass testing and has even locked down a residential compound in the city, according to the Associated Press.
Officials in the city of Xi’an—whose 13 million residents endured a month-long lockdown earlier this year—have ordered public venues like dine-in restaurants, bars, cinemas and gyms to close as recent cases detected in the city have been linked to highly infectious BA.5 omicron subvariant which is also rapidly spreading across the U.S.
Big Number
590. That is the total number of Covid-related deaths China has reported since the start of 2022, according to official data. While the number is significantly smaller than death tolls reported in Europe and the United States, it is a major uptick from China’s own figures of just two Covid-19 deaths in 2021.
Key Facts
Despite facing international skepticism, economic pain and even rare public protests at home, Chinese officials have zealously stuck to their so-called “dynamic zero-Covid” approach to the pandemic. Chinese officials say their goal is to completely eliminate the local spread of the virus and they have done so by imposing stringent lockdowns and carrying out mass PCR testing of residents in cities where flare-ups are detected. This approach was severely tested earlier this year when Shanghai—China’s largest city and its financial hub—faced its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic which led to a nearly two-month-long lockdown. Shanghai’s stringent lockdown had a major impact on global supply chains and led to an outpouring of dissent from residents facing food shortages and arbitrary quarantine measures. Despite this China’s President Xi Jinping, has continued to back the zero-Covid approach saying the country must be prepared to deal with some short-term economic pain instead of “harming people’s… safety and physical health” in the pursuit of a herd-immunity strategy. According to Bloomberg’s tracker, China has administered over 3.4 billion vaccine doses so far with 89% of its population receiving at least two doses. But data from Hong Kong suggests that China’s indigenous Sinovac shot may be less effective than Western mRNA-based shots are preventing infections from Covid-19.
Further Reading
Shanghai, Beijing order new round of mass COVID-19 testing (Associated Press)
China battles karaoke COVID cluster in Shanghai among other outbreaks (Reuters)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2022/07/06/shanghais-latest-covid-flare-up-triggers-mass-testing-and-stock-market-slump/