by Eduardo Baptista and Brenda Goh
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, April 26 (Reuters) – Three-quarters of Beijing’s 22 million people lined up for a massive COVID-19 screening on Tuesday, as the Chinese capital seeks to eradicate an outbreak as soon as possible and thus avoiding a confinement similar to that which has paralyzed Shanghai for a month.
Testing in the capital’s most populous district, Chaoyang, began on Monday morning. Overnight, authorities listed 10 more districts and an economic development zone to undergo mandatory testing this week, for a total of 20 million people, including 16 million on Tuesday.
These measures come as dozens of new coronavirus infections have been recorded in Beijing in recent days. Shanghai had waited about a month and more than 1,000 cases before launching citywide testing in early April.
ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES
In the capital, schools, shops and offices remained open, but the famous Lama Buddhist Temple will be closed to tourists from Wednesday and Beijing’s National Theater will be closed until the end of the month.
Authorities have asked residents not to leave the city and to avoid gatherings on Labor Day, April 30 to May 4.
Chinese stocks are at their lowest levels in two years as markets worry about the consequences of a new wave of COVID-19 on the economy.
The economic fallout from a potential lockdown in Beijing would likely be less severe than that from measures taken in Shanghai, a key cog in national and global supply chains.
“In Beijing, I think the impact on business is less because most activities can be done remotely,” Joerg Wuttke, president of the Beijing-based European Union Chamber of Commerce, told Reuters.
Nie Wen of Hwabao Trust estimated that a lockdown in Beijing and Shanghai could cut China’s economic output by one percentage point in the second quarter. (Reporting Eduardo Baptista, Ryan Woo, Brenda Goh, Martin Quin Pollard, Ellen Zhang and Beijing and Shanghai newsrooms, written by Marius Zaharia; French version Valentine Baldassari; editing by Kate Entringer)