Shanghai’s Latest Covid Flare-Up Triggers Mass Testing and Stock Market Slowdown
Top Line
The looming outbreak of COVID-19 cases in Shanghai has prompted authorities to begin mass testing in more than half of the city, while infections in other parts of China have triggered partial lockdowns, allowing the country to And worries about economic disruptions have increased. Stick to implementing your zero-covid strategy.
People line up at a nucleic acid screening center at Zhongshan Hospital in Shanghai, China.
Future Publishing via Getty Images
Key Facts
Shanghai reported 24 new cases on Tuesday – its biggest single-day figure in as many weeks – in an outbreak that has been linked to the city’s karaoke bars, according to China’s National Health Commission.
Authorities have begun mass testing in nine of Shanghai’s 16 districts as well as select areas in three other districts, Reuters reports.
The outbreak has prompted fears of another major lockdown in China’s financial center, with the Shanghai SE Composite Index and China’s CSI 300 index falling more than 1.4% in afternoon trade.
According to the Associated Press, China’s capital Beijing, which suffered a small outbreak last month, has continued to conduct large-scale testing and has also closed down a residential complex in the city.
Xi’an city officials—whose 13 million residents faced a months-long lockdown earlier this year—have ordered the closure of public places such as dine-in restaurants, bars, cinemas and gyms since the city recently Cases found in . For the highly infectious BA.5 omicron subvariant that is rapidly spreading across the US
big number
590. China has reported the total number of COVID-related deaths since the beginning of 2022, according to official figures. While the number is significantly lower than the death toll in Europe and the United States, it is a significant increase from China’s own figures of only two Covid-19 deaths in 2021.
Key Facts
Despite facing international skepticism, economic pain and even rare public protests at home, Chinese officials are enthusiastically sticking to their so-called “dynamic zero-Covid” approach to the pandemic. Chinese officials say they aim to completely eliminate the local spread of the virus, and have done so by enforcing strict lockdowns and conducting large-scale PCR tests of residents in cities where flare-ups have been detected. That approach was severely tested earlier this year when Shanghai—China’s largest city and its financial center—became the worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic, which led to a nearly two-month lockdown . Shanghai’s stringent lockdown had a major impact on global supply chains and led to discontent among residents facing food shortages and arbitrary quarantine measures. Despite this, Chinese President Xi Jinping has continued to support the zero-Covid approach, saying that the pursuit of herd-immunity should help the country deal with some short-term economic pain rather than “harming people’s safety and physical health”. should be prepared for. strategy. According to Bloomberg’s tracker, China has given more than 3.4 billion vaccine doses so far, of which 89% of the population has received at least two doses. But data from Hong Kong suggests China’s indigenous Sinovac shot may be less effective than Western mRNA-based shots at preventing infection with COVID-19.
Further reading
Shanghai, Beijing order new rounds of mass COVID-19 testing (Associated Press)
China fights karaoke COVID cluster in Shanghai among other outbreaks (Reuters)
