China is stepping up efforts to contain COVID-19 outbreaks ahead of the Chinese Communist Party National Congress, with cases climbing to the highest in almost two months and concerns about widening lockdowns rippling across Shanghai.
The country reported 1,878 cases for Sunday, the highest since Aug. 20, as the week-long National Day holiday saw cases flare among returning travelers. Shanghai posted 34 new local infections, the most in almost three months, with two infections found outside of its quarantine system.
The uptick has seen neighborhoods locked down and buildings barricaded with the green fences that were a feature of the Shanghai’s extended shutdown earlier this year. The Putuo and Changning districts have closed entertainment venues to enhance COVID-19 controls.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Inner Mongolia, where more than one-third of the country’s infections are found, banned people from entering its capital, Hohhot, starting from yesterday. Residents who need to return have been asked to delay their journey until the outbreak is under control.
In a sign of the tensions in the country, even a city that has no reported infections has gone into lockdown. Yongji, which has 400,000 residents and is in Shanxi Province, went into a three-day lockdown from Friday evening to prevent potential cases in travelers going home after the holiday. The move sparked a raft of criticism from Chinese social media users, who called the officials overzealous.
Local authorities are under pressure to bring COVID-19 flare-ups under control as the party congress, where Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term in power, is due to start in days. Xi has made “zero COVID-19,” which relies on snap shutdowns and frequent testing, a cornerstone of his leadership despite its heavy social and economic cost.
While the rest of the world has shifted to living with the virus, Chinese officials and state media have repeatedly endorsed the zero-tolerance approach as the right path for the country.
In a commentary published yesterday, the official People’s Daily said that the strict measures are scientific and virus variants remain a major threat to the elderly. People should boost their confidence in and patience about domestic COVID-19 rules, it said.
For residents of Shanghai, concerns are rising about the potential for harsher curbs. Multiple residential areas are being locked down in downtown Shanghai, including Changning and Xuhui districts. Some residential compounds under lockdown have received food supplies from the local government, and rumors about school suspension have been spreading.
“The practices and atmosphere all sound so familiar,” said Cynthia Lu, a mother of two primary school children who lives in Pudong. “The idea that my kids may need to have online class again and the family has to be stuck in the room all day makes me so sick.”
“But let’s be realistic, I’ll stockpile some food now,” she said.
Selina Liu, a 35-year-old auditor who lives in Shanghai, traveled to Yunnan during last week’s holiday and got stuck in a quarantine hotel during a local outbreak. The lockdown of her hotel was lifted on Sunday and she was able to fly back to Shanghai after some of her earlier flight bookings were canceled.
“I’m too tired to complain against anything right now. I just feel lucky to grab a ticket home,” she said. “I won’t do any travel for a while, and just want to lie flat at home.”
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS