Beijing / (Archyde.com)
Authorities in the Chinese capital, Beijing, scrambled Monday to contain an outbreak of COVID-19, deciding to conduct mandatory checks on millions and isolate thousands in targeted lockdowns.
And the authorities monitored 200 cases of Corona virus related to the case that returned to work when the disease control restrictions were eased in the city last week, which highlights the difficulty of China’s success in implementing the (zero Covid) policy while the rest of the world chooses to learn how to live with the virus.
The resurgence of Covid infections has renewed concerns regarding the world’s second largest economy. China is still trying to shake off the impact of a two-month shutdown in Shanghai, which has also damaged global supply chains.
Chaoyang District, Beijing’s most densely populated district and home to the bar where the latest outbreak is located, began a three-day campaign of mass testing on Monday among its nearly 3.5 million residents.
And the authorities monitored regarding ten thousand contacts of those who frequented the bar, and the residential buildings in which they lived were placed under closure procedures and postponed the resumption of studies in some schools there.
Witnesses said queues at some test sites extended more than 100 metres.
The authorities have linked nearly 200 cases of Covid-19 to bar-goers since June 9, describing the outbreak as “ferocious” and “explosive”, with those infected working or living in 14 of the city’s 16 neighborhoods.
Beijing recorded a total of 51 cases on Sunday, compared to 65 the previous day, consistent with a general decline in infections in the country. As for Shanghai, which completed a mass screening of its 25 million residents at the weekend following lifting restrictions at the beginning of this month, it recorded 37 cases, up from 29.
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China granted for the second time this year new licenses of video games following a months-long freeze in the world’s largest market, a decision seen as a positive signal for the tech giants. The sector has been under pressure for months from Beijing, which has multiplied the blows once morest powerful internet companies, fined for competition and personal data issues.
Video games, a financial windfall in China
The sector decried for their addictive side among young people, has not been spared by this takeover. Beijing had frozen any new license for nine months, which had weighed on the profitability of the Chinese heavyweight Tencent. On Tuesday, 60 new video games were licensed in China following an initial batch in April, the press and publication administration said.
Read also: Video games. China to limit online gaming to 3 hours per week for minors
Tencent and its competitor NetEase (to whom we owe the very recent Diablo Immortal ) have however not obtained any license, unlike local studios such as Perfect World or miHoYo, publisher of the popular game Genshin Impact.
Companies go back on the stock market
The green light from Beijing caused technology stocks to jump on Wednesday, with the hope of a patching up with this sector which has been under pressure for months. Tencent stock gained more than 6% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while NetEase gained more than 5%. The e-commerce champion Alibaba, which had been the first to suffer the punishment of the authorities, ended up up more than 10%.
In August, the authorities imposed a drastic limit of three hours of play online video per week to under 18s, while some might spend days glued to their screens.
Regulatory uncertainties have weighed on the profitability of tech giants: Tencent thus reported last month of sluggish quarterly growth, unheard of since 2004. Threatened by an economic slowdown, the communist power seemed however to put some water in his wine in recent weeks. Beijing affirmed its support for the digital economy in April and received several bosses in the process.
Three more rounds of nucleic acid testing will be carried out in the third district of Fangshan, Shunyi, Chaoyang, Beijing starting tomorrow
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
This followingnoon, Beijing held the 329th press conference on epidemic prevention and control. At the meeting, Li Ang, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said: On May 8, the five districts of Dongcheng, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai, Fangshan, and other districts where cases had occurred since April 25 carried out regional nucleic acid screening. A total of 17.86 million people have been screened, and tests have been completed. A total of 4 tubes of mixed mining have been screened positive. They are located in Haidian, Fengtai, Shunyi, and Changping. The work of placement control, review and transfer, and flow control traceability has been carried out simultaneously.
In order to achieve social clearance as soon as possible, according to the research and judgment of the Beijing Municipal Disease Control Department, and according to the deployment of the Beijing Municipal Leading Group for Epidemic Prevention and Control, starting from May 10, the nucleic acid screening work in the Beijing area will be arranged as follows:Nucleic acid screening in key areas. On May 10, 11, and 12, three rounds of regional nucleic acid screening were carried out in the whole area of Chaoyang, Shunyi, and Fangshan districts, and in the other 14 districts where positive cases occurred within the past 7 days.
(He Chang Hu Yali, a reporter from the head office)
Beijing expands examination campaign and obsession with closure looms
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
On Tuesday, Beijing lives on the impact of fears of declaring a complete closure similar to Shanghai, with the expansion of diagnostic tests to include the majority of its 22 million residents, an increase in the number of injuries, the closure of sports halls and tourist sites, and the cancellation of shows and wedding parties.
Since March, China has been facing an epidemic outbreak that affects, to varying degrees, different regions. China adopts a “zero Covid” strategy and accompanies it with extensive quarantine and examinations.
Shanghai has become the main focus of the epidemic, and on Tuesday it announced 52 new deaths and nearly 17,000 infections within 24 hours.
The city’s 25 million residents have been under strict quarantine since early April. Some of them face difficulties in obtaining food, while the injured are sent to quarantine centers where health conditions vary.
But the situation is much less serious in Beijing, but the Chinese capital has recorded more than a hundred injuries since last week, including 33 detected on Tuesday, an increase compared to previous days.
In order to identify and isolate the infected as soon as possible, the Beijing authorities will launch a diagnostic campaign, which was expanded on Tuesday to 12 out of 16 districts in the city.
And on Monday, residents and workers in Chaoyang District, which includes the largest population in the Chinese capital, and many international companies, offices, embassies and commercial centers, underwent diagnostic tests. And 11 new areas began examining their residents on Tuesday. This testing campaign covers regarding 20 million people in Beijing.
In parallel, the Chinese capital began to impose restrictions.
And several sports halls, where residents of the capital play basketball or badminton, announced on Tuesday that their doors will be closed until further notice, “in line with the instructions of the health authorities.”
The Tibetan Buddhist Lama Temple, which attracts many visitors, will be closed from Wednesday.
Hotels are now prohibited from hosting meetings, according to what the city’s municipality announced on Tuesday, while exhibitions, marriages, shows and sports competitions were suspended.
But life is still largely normal in Beijing. Shops, restaurants and cinemas are still open.
Although the authorities did not raise the possibility of imposing the closure, what happened in Shanghai frightens many Beijing residents who prefer to form a stockpile of food in anticipation of this possibility.
In recent days, they are heading in large numbers to stores and online platforms to buy meat, fruits, vegetables, water and other necessities.
The authorities urged companies to work remotely. A few days before the May 1 holiday, it called on residents of the capital not to leave the city unless absolutely necessary.
However, the measures taken in Beijing are moderate compared to those imposed in other regions facing a similar epidemic outbreak.
The city of Baotou in the north of the country, a large producer of rare earth metals, called on all its residents to stay in their homes following discovering two cases.