China on edge amid worsening outbreak
Authorities are facing simmering fury over reintroduction of control curbs just weeks after vowing to ease Covid measures
BEIJING: China on Friday reported another day of record high daily Covid-19 infections as local governments struggled to control the ongoing Omicrondriven outbreak through lockdowns and restrictions, while addressing the increasing pushback from frustrated citizens.
Millions of Chinese citizens, especially in large cities like Beijing in the north, Guangzhou in the south and Chongqing in the southwest, have been asked to stay home for the weekend with at least 32,695 new local infections recorded for Thursday on Friday, the highest since the pandemic started.
A number of other cities are conducting mass testing and implementing targeted lockdowns as authorities return to previous Covid control protocols, despite promising the easing of restrictions just two weeks ago. The capital city, Beijing, recorded its own daily high of infections, reporting over 1,800 cases on Friday for the day before. Its caseload is expected to rise further in the coming days.
Millions of Beijing residents stayed home on Friday, stepping out only for Covid-19 tests as many subdistrict authorities implemented temporary lockdowns though without formal declarations. A majority of the city’s 22 million residents started three new rounds of mass nucleic acid tests on Friday.
Panic buying of essential sup21, plies was reported from across the city as residents expected the “three-day static management” to extend into next week.
Residents in apartment complexes formed groups on Wechat to exchange information about the situation, and to coordinate bulk buying of supplies, where needed.
“At present, the number of new cases of the epidemic in Beijing continues to grow at a high level, the number of social cases (infections logged outside centralised quarantine) is increasing, and the prevention and control situation is more severe and complicated,” Xu Hejian, a spokesperson of the Beijing government said at a press conference on Friday.
The city’s authorities said they have made efforts to ensure the city’s daily supply of meat, eggs, vegetables and other daily necessities, according to state media.
With over 12,000 cases reported in the latest outbreak between November 1-25, Beijing is in the most complicated phase of its fight against the spread of Covid. It has seen over 1,000 new cases every day since November
a first for the capital.
10 deaths in apartment fire blamed on curbs
At least 10 people were killed, and nine others injured in a fire at a residential high-rise in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Thursday night.
Videos and posts widely shared on Twitter and Chinese social media, until they were censored, suggested that fire trucks were allegedly blocked from entering the compound because of restrictions under China’s “zero-covid” policy. One video showed workers uprooting barricades for the trucks to enter. The fire broke out on Thursday night at a residential building in the community of Tianshan District in Urumqi. The blaze was put out in about three hours, officials said.
Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
30% of iphone November shipments to take a hit
Production of Apple’s iphones could slump by at least 30% at Foxconn’s factory in China’s city of Zhengzhou after worker unrest disrupted operations, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Friday.
The estimate was an upward revision of an October internal forecast for production impact of up to 30% at the world’s largest iphone factory, said the source, who sought anonymity as the information was private.
Following this week’s bout of worker unrest at the plant, the source added, it was “impossible” for the company to resume full production by the end of the month - a deadline it had set internally before Wednesday’s wave of protests.