While new daily Covid-19 cases are declining in Shanghai and some lockdown measures have been relaxed, most Beijing residents have been tested three times in the past week and will not be able to enter scenic spots, hotels and other public spaces during the May Day holiday without a negative PCR test in the past 48 hours.
Restaurants in Beijing only open for outside deliveries between May 1 and 4. A negative test taken within the past week will be required to use public transport after the May Day holidays. PCR tests will be free of charge for Beijing residents. Meanwhile all domestic flights were canceled for two days at Baiyun airport in Guangzhou after one Covid-19 case was detected. International and cargo flights were not affected.
To curb the Covid-19 outbreak in Beijing, residents must present a negative test taken within 48 hours if they wish to enter public places during May Day holiday, which runs from April 30 till May 4. After the five-day holiday, students and workers should show a negative test before returning to school or work. Beijing has reported a total of 400 cases in 14 districts since April 22. Between 3 pm on Sunday and 3 pm on Monday, Beijing reported 41 new locally transmitted confirmed cases and nine new asymptomatic carriers, of which 45 were reported from controlled zones and five were found during mass nucleic acid tests. Beijing residents in 12 districts will be subjected to PCR tests on three consecutive days – May 3, 4 and 5 – to cut off sources of virus transmission.
Beijing’s online health code checking system, Jiankangbao, was hit by cyber attacks from overseas on April 28 but services were not disrupted. The system has stored a huge amount of personal information and is key to the capital city’s ongoing efforts to curb the virus. The attacks may have aimed to acquire private information of Beijing residents.
Beijing reopened the Xiaotangshan makeshift hospital on May 1 to treat Covid-19 asymptomatic patients and mild cases.The hospital, once used for accommodating SARS patients in 2003 and also for treating local Covid-19 patients in early 2020, consists of nine isolation units and 1,200 beds. There were nearly 400 makeshift hospitals across China, with over 560,000 beds, for mild and asymptomatic cases.
In Shanghai, most new cases were detected in persons already in quarantine, but mass testing continued, and people were still prevented from leaving Shanghai unless in an emergency. In areas where no new infections were detected for some time, restrictions were slowly being lifted, as people were allowed more freedom to move around. “Chances are slim for a lifting of the lockdown before the societal zero-Covid goal is achieved,” said Meng Tianying, Senior Executive at Shanghai-based consultancy Domo Medical. “It is difficult to predict when the goal can be achieved because the Omicron variant is not easy to contain.” Major logistics enterprises in Shanghai resumed express delivery services in the city after weeks of suspension.
In Shanghai, six districts, including Fengxian, Jinshan and Chongming, have basically realized no community transmissions, easing the lockdown for more than 15 million residents. The number of new daily infections has steadily declined after it peaked at 27,605 on April 13, Gu Honghui, an official with the Shanghai government, said. On May 1, 2.76 million residents were living in lockdown zones and 5.51 million in controlled zones, where strict epidemic control measures are still being implemented. Shanghai will continue conducting nucleic acid testing till May 7, and will adopt combined nucleic acid and antigen testing in some areas. Shanghai reported 788 confirmed and 7,084 asymptomatic cases on May 1, the fourth consecutive day in which the number of new daily infections dropped to below 10,000. The number of deaths has increased to 454 in the latest flare-up.
Joerg Wuttke, Chairman of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, urged the authorities in Beijing to focus on mass vaccination, especially of the elderly, instead of draconian mass testing. Colm Rafferty, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the situation in Beijing appeared to be stable for now, with smooth mass testing and no food shortages, but the business community remained concerned about the possibility of a citywide lockdown. The Chamber said that a surge in cases, lockdowns and greater uncertainty had made doing business “very challenging”. The districts affected by testing cover about 20 million people. Only five less-populated, suburban districts covering about 2.14 million, are excluded from the city’s testing regime. Only a dozen positive samples were found in Beijing’s first round of mass Covid-19 testing involving nearly 20 million people.
Two homegrown Omicron-specific Covid-19 vaccine candidates developed by Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech have been approved for clinical trials by China’s top drug regulator. If the trial proceeds successfully, the experimental vaccine from Sinopharm will likely be used as a third or fourth booster shot for fully vaccinated people aged 18 and older, the company said.
Major cities including Shanghai and Beijing have been taking steps to increase the Covid-19 vaccination rate among residents aged 60 and above, as they are most likely to develop severe cases of the disease or even death due to underlying conditions. The vaccination rate of people aged 60 and above in Shanghai currently stands at just 62%, much lower than the national average of 80.6%. The percentage of those who had received their booster shot is also much lower – 38% in Shanghai compared with the national average of around 57%. According to the Beijing government, more than 3.43 million residents aged 60 and above had received a vaccination shot as of April 13, accounting for 80% of the group.
The Chinese authorities still want to stick to the zero-Covid policy, saying it has kept death rates low compared to other countries. A source at a foreign business lobby in Beijing, quoted by the South China Morning Post, said that “the priority for local officials in their performance evaluation this year is no Covid, and they don’t care about the second one, which is the economy”.
The Ministry of Transport forecasts a total of 100 million trips will be made over the five-day May Day holiday, a 62% drop compared with the previous year. China has reported over 550,000 local infections in April, with all provinces and regions, except Tibet, reporting local cases.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily, Global Times and South China Morning Post.
