China steps up anti-COVID measures in megacities as infections mount
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[October 11, 2022]
By Ryan Woo and Casey Hall
BEIJING (Reuters) - Shanghai and other big
Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, have ramped up testing for COVID-19
as infections rise, with some local authorities hastily closing schools,
entertainment venues and tourist spots.
Infections have risen to the highest since August, with the uptick
coming after increased domestic travel during the National Day "Golden
Week" earlier this month.
Authorities reported 2,089 new local infections for Oct. 10, the most
since Aug. 20.
While many of the cases were found in tourist destinations, including
scenic spots in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, megacities that
are often the source of well-travelled tourists have started to report
more cases this week.
Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, reported 28 local cases for Oct.
10, the fourth day of double-digit increases.
Keen to avoid a reprise of the economically and psychically scarring
lockdown in April-May, Shanghai said late on Monday that all its 16
districts were to conduct mass testing at least twice a week until Nov.
10, a step up from once a week under a regime imposed after the last
lockdown.
Checks on inbound travellers and in places such as hotels should also be
strengthened, authorities said.
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The expanding web of measures have already ensnared some.
Peter Lee, a long-time British expatriate, was out at lunch with his
wife and seven-year-old son last week when he was notified his apartment
block was to be locked down.
Lee and his son then checked into a hotel, which was soon also locked
down, due to a prior visit by a virus carrier. Lee's wife, who was
planning to join them, had no choice but returned home to be locked in.
"It might be that we say, we miss home and we miss mum too much and
maybe we just go home and just deal with it," Lee told Reuters.
"We're monitoring the situation because it seems like Shanghai is
gradually shutting down anyway and if everything starts to close then
there won't be much benefit in being able to come and go."
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![](../images/101122PIX/health29.jpg)
People wearing protective face masks
walk, following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in
Shanghai, China, October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song
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As of Monday, 36 Chinese cities were under various degrees of
lockdown or control, affecting around 196.9 million people, versus
179.7 million in the previous week, according to Nomura.
In China's southern tech hub Shenzhen, where the highly
transmissible BF.7 Omicron subvariant has surfaced, local cases more
than tripled to 33 on Oct. 10 from a day earlier.
Inbound travellers will be subject to three tests over three days,
authorities in the city of 18 million people said on Tuesday.
In the northwestern city of Xian, which reported just over 100 cases
from Oct. 1-10, authorities halted offline classes at schools and
closed many public spaces including the famous Terracotta Warriors
Museum.
Daily shuttle buses ferrying tens of thousands of people to work in
Beijing from nearby Tianjin and Hebei will be suspended from
Wednesday due to the COVID resurgence.
Despite China's very small caseload versus the rest of the world,
and the toll its counter-epidemic policies exact on the economy and
population, the government has repeatedly urged people to accept the
measures.
"Once a large-scale rebound occurs, the epidemic will spread, and is
bound to have a serious impact on economic and social development,
and the final price will be higher and losses will be greater,"
state-controlled People's Daily wrote in a commentary on Tuesday.
The COVID preventive steps come days ahead of a Communist Party
congress starting on Oct. 16 where Xi Jinping is expected to extend
his leadership.
"The latest resurgence of draconian COVID-19 restrictions is likely
to be temporary given the priority to keep things under control
ahead of the all-important meeting," said analysts from U.S.
alternative asset management firm Clocktower Group.
"However, the People's Daily's tripling down on the zero-COVID-19
narrative is indeed a major concern, which suggest that a major
policy recalibration may still be far away."
(Reporting by Ryan Woo, Casey Hall and Jason Xue; Editing by Raju
Gopalakrishnan)
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