The manufacturing hub of Guangzhou yesterday closed itself to most arrivals as China battles a major COVID-19 surge in its big eastern cities.
Shanghai has taken the brunt of the surge, with another 26,087 cases announced yesterday, only 914 of whom showed symptoms. The city of 26 million is under a tight lockdown, with many residents confined to their homes for up to three weeks.
No such lockdown has yet been announced for Guangzhou, a metropolis of 18 million northwest of Hong Kong that is home to many top companies and China’s busiest airport.
Photo: Reuters
Only 27 cases were yesterday reported in the city.
However, primary and middle schools have switched to online lessons after an initial 23 local cases were detected last week.
An exhibition center was being converted into a makeshift hospital after authorities earlier said that they would begin citywide mass testing.
Only citizens with a “definite need” to leave Guangzhou can do so, and only if they test negative for the virus within 48 hours of departure, city spokesperson Chen Bin (陳斌) wrote on social media.
China has stuck to its “zero COVID” strategy of handling outbreaks with strict isolation and mass testing, despite complaints in Shanghai over shortages of food and medical services.
The government and the entirely state-controlled media are growing increasingly defensive about complaints over COVID-19 prevention measures, censoring online content and rebuking foreign critics.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) on Sunday said that China had “lodged solemn representations with the US,” after the US Department of State advised Americans to reconsider traveling to China due to “arbitrary enforcement” of local laws and COVID-19 restrictions, particularly in Hong Kong, Jilin Province and Shanghai.
US officials cited a risk of “parents and children being separated.”
China was “strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the US side’s groundless accusation against China’s epidemic response,” Zhao said.
Despite that, and indications that the hardline policy is being dictated by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), China has rejected any notion that its response is political in nature.
Xi has demanded social stability above all else in the run-up to a key Chinese Communist Party congress later this year at which he is expected to bestow on himself an unprecedented third-term as party leader.
The English-language China Daily said that Shanghai’s measures are “far from perfect,” and pointed to the firing last week of three local officials for failing in their duties.
However, it said that should not become an “excuse to politicize the event and blame China.”
Despite the large number of cases, no new deaths have been reported in the Shanghai wave, possibly because the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is less deadly than older variants.
City authorities also say they have secured daily supplies for residents, after complaints about deliveries of food and other necessities.
Residents have resorted to group buying of groceries, because they are not allowed to leave their buildings, with only partial success in obtaining needed items.
Beijing has seen relatively few restrictions, although the Erjiefang neighborhood, including the famed 798 Art District, has been cordoned off and classified as high risk after eight infections were reported there over the past two weeks.
China is facing one of its worst local outbreaks since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and is still mostly closed to international travel, even as most of the world has sought ways to live with the virus.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS