Corona is spreading more and more in northeast China. Once again, Shenyang, a metropolis of nine million, has to go into lockdown. Despite high costs, China still adheres to the zero-Covid policy.
Update from March 22, 09:30: The corona virus * is apparently spreading in northeast China. In view of the persistently high number of infections, China’s authorities imposed a lockdown on another city of nine million in the region late Monday evening. Since then, the residents of the Shenyang industrial site have only been allowed to leave their residential complexes with a current negative corona test. Shenyang is the most important economic metropolis in the northeast. There BMW has one of its largest plants worldwide; many suppliers are also active there.
Shenyang is the capital of Liaoning Province, which borders Jilin Province — currently the hardest-hit province in the country. There is a curfew in the provincial capital Changchun and the city of the same name Jilin. Three VW plants in Changchun have suspended production until at least Tuesday. The Chinese health authorities reported almost 4,800 new cases of infection nationwide within one day on Tuesday, slightly more than on Monday. Most of them have been detected in Jilin, which borders Russia and North Korea.
The fact that Shenyang has to go into lockdown with only 47 new infections shows how nervous the authorities are. The vaccination rate among the elderly is low. The current wave with the highly contagious omicron variant is now pushing the healthcare system to its limits. The first 10,000 doses of the oral Covid drug Paxlovid from the US company Pfizer arrived in Jilin on Monday. It is the first time Paxlovid has been used in China.
Covid in China: VW plants remain closed
Update from March 21, 2022, 9.10 a.m.: The Volkswagen plants in the closed northern Chinese city of Changchun are still standing still due to the current corona wave. As a spokeswoman announced on Monday in Beijing, VW initially had to extend the production stop in three plants until Tuesday due to the lockdown. It is the second time that VW has extended the suspension. In Changchun, a VW plant, an Audi plant and a component plant are affected. All three are operated together with the Chinese partner FAW. As a spokeswoman announced on Monday in Beijing, production at the VW plants in Shanghai continues.
The Changchun authorities had ordered a lockdown for the nine million metropolis more than a week ago, which was tightened again on Sunday. China is currently being overwhelmed by its worst corona wave since the pandemic began a good two years ago. As of Monday, 61 cities across the country reported new cases. In total, there were 4,331 new infections in China on Monday, almost half of which showed symptoms. The number of daily new infections has been relatively stable at around 4,000 for days.
China’s financial metropolis Shanghai* reported a record increase in daily local Covid 19 infections on Monday, which is also due to the ongoing mass tests. Because of the reported 759 new infections, a whopping 734 cases were without symptoms. These would probably not have been discovered so quickly without the mass tests. However, this also shows that there is probably a high number of unreported cases in China – especially where there are not mass tests.
China: Millions more in the Corona lockdown
Update from March 20, 2022, 6:20 p.m.: China is sending millions more people into lockdown in the current omicron wave. The city of Changchun, which has been cordoned off since March 11, tightened the lockdown for its nine million inhabitants for three days on Sunday. So far, they have been allowed to leave their home every two days to go shopping.
For the time being, only medical and other personnel necessary to fight the pandemic should be allowed to go outside. Changchun is the capital of the hardest-hit Jilin province. Also in the second largest city in the province, which is also called Jilin, around 4.5 million people are not allowed to leave their homes for three days from Monday evening, as the local authorities announced on Sunday.
The number of cases is still high by Chinese standards. On Saturday and Sunday, the authorities reported around 4,000 new infections across the country. Two-thirds of this was in the Jilin hotspot. China is also continuing to work frantically to expand hospital capacities in order to prevent the healthcare system from being overloaded. Eight makeshift hospitals and two quarantine centers have been set up in Jilin Province alone. China is an emerging country and therefore does not have state-of-the-art hospitals everywhere.
China: First deaths in more than a year
Update from March 19, 2022, 9.30 a.m.: China* has reported two corona deaths for the first time in over a year. Both Covid-19 patients died in the northeastern province of Jilin, the National Health Commission said on Saturday. Jilin is the province hardest hit by the current wave. The authorities have now set up eight makeshift hospitals and two quarantine centers there. Because normally there are only around 23,000 hospital beds for around 24 million inhabitants in the province.
This shows the enormous effort that many regions have to make to strictly combat corona. Apparently, this is increasingly draining the finances of the municipalities. During the first outbreak in early 2020, the central government had allocated funds to help local governments fight the pandemic. But since 2021, the local authorities have to bear these costs themselves.
The People’s Republic reported the last corona death on January 26, 2021. A total of 4,638 people have died from or with the corona virus in China since the beginning of the pandemic. The number of new infections nationwide was 4051 on Saturday, slightly lower than on Friday with 4365.
Shenzhen: easing of the corona lockdown
First report from March 18, 2022: Shenzhen/Munich – The southern Chinese economic metropolis of Shenzhen* has relaxed its strict corona lockdown. In the city of 17 million, which has been completely locked down since Sunday, factories and other businesses in four districts and a special economic zone are allowed to work again, the authorities said. The iPhone manufacturer Foxconn had already started producing again on Thursday * after creating a kind of “bubble” for the employees.
But the current Omicron wave is far from over. On Friday, the health authorities reported 4,365 new infections nationwide. The numbers are now rising again after a dip in the middle of the week. Meanwhile, China’s top government continues to insist on zero tolerance for the virus. Head of State Xi Jinping* on Thursday underlined the need to put people’s lives first and “adhere to the dynamic zero-COVID strategy with scientific and targeted measures”. Xi also called for “minimizing” the impact of the pandemic on the country’s economy.
Several cities are still in lockdown, and authorities across the country are using mass tests and various restrictions to combat local sources of infection. This now also extends to some rural regions.
–One reason for the government’s continued nervousness is likely to be the low vaccination rate among older people in China. Only about 51 percent of those over 80 had received two vaccinations, health officials said in Beijing on Friday. Every fifth is boosted. It is the first time China has broken down vaccination coverage by age group. In Hong Kong, many older people have already become seriously ill and died in the current severe corona outbreak due to the low vaccination rate *. A total of 87.9 percent of China’s 1.4 billion people have been double-vaccinated, authorities said. That’s a comparatively high percentage. But nobody knows exactly how well the Chinese vaccines protect against the omicron variant.
China: First adjustments in the fight against the pandemic
But there are early signs of a behind-the-scenes debate. Individual Chinese scientists and experts have repeatedly expressed doubts about the zero-Covid policy in recent weeks due to the economic and social consequences of the ever new lockdowns and mass tests.
There are also the first cautious adjustments in the fight against the pandemic. The health authorities announced on Friday that they would adjust the threshold for the so-called ct value for a result classified as positive to international standards in PCR tests. This ct value (cycle threshold value) indicates the viral load of an infected person and also shows the risk posed by this person. In China, a ct value of 40 was previously used. But now it should be 35 according to international standards. During the Olympic Games, the different assessments of PCR tests caused displeasure* among several athlete delegations. People who have tested positive with only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all only have to move to quarantine centers instead of special clinics. More beds are to be kept free there for the seriously ill.
Shenzhen: Easing also due to concerns about economic consequences
Apparently, the economic consequences of the lockdowns are also given greater consideration. Shenzhen is an important industrial and technological location with a large container port. Many companies had to stop production temporarily; As a result, stock market prices collapsed in neighboring Hong Kong. The easing that has now been announced is intended to “reconcile the prevention and control of the epidemic” with “economic and social development”, as the city’s Corona crisis team announced. The corona situation in Shenzhen is still “serious” but “controllable”. (ck/AFP) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
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