In China, a new wave of infections is dampening hope that the radical zero-Covid policy will soon come to an end. Around 26,000 new infections were reported for Sunday, almost as many as at the previous peak of the year in mid-April. A government spokesman described the situation as “bleak”.
Investors in the financial markets in particular had previously hoped that the government would not return to the lockdowns imposed in the spring, which had brought entire cities to a standstill for weeks to months, for example in Shanghai, which has a population of 26 million.
In the future, too, China seems to be pursuing the strategy of breaking chains of infection through hard lockdowns. After 962 new infections were reported in Beijing on Monday, twice as many cases as a week earlier, the city is in virtual lockdown. In many districts of the city, schools are closed until further notice.
Speculations about corona infection at Xi Jinping
The authorities have urged the population to stay at home or at least to severely limit their radius of movement. A spokesman for the city government said on Monday that people arriving in Beijing should be tested daily for the first three days of their stay and wait for the results before they are allowed to leave their homes or accommodations. China’s second-largest city is facing its most difficult situation since the pandemic began, said deputy director of the city’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Liu Xiaofeng. A total of three deaths were reported there over the weekend.
Entire neighborhoods are also in lockdown in other cities, such as southern Guangzhou. In Shijiazhuang, the capital of Beijing’s neighboring province of Hebei, mass tests were reintroduced in addition to lockdowns after the city suspended testing of the general population in a pilot project until a few days ago. China has been battling multiple outbreaks, from Zhengzhou in central Henan province to Chongqing in the southwest.
A few days earlier, announcements by the National Health Agency that lockdown measures would be taken had given many people hope. The same applied to President Xi Jinping, who appeared at various summits in Asia without a face mask for the first time in three years, for example at the meeting of the G-20 countries in Bali.
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Bangkok, Xi had sat without a mask next to Hong Kong Prime Minister John Lee, who had tested positive for Covid on his return. Now speculation is circulating that Xi could also have contracted the virus at the Apec summit.