China expands lockdowns after record Covid-19 cases
The total caseload since Nov 1 stands over 310,000, a surge that has left city governments across China struggling and searching for ways to curb the spread
China reported a record high in daily Covid-19 infections on Thursday as it imposed localised lockdowns in several cities including in Beijing and local authorities struggled to control the surging outbreak, given the promise of easing the controversial ‘zeroCovid’ strategy.
Mainland China reported more than 31,600 Covid infections for Wednesday, the highest daily number since the pandemic broke out in the central city of Wuhan in late, 2019, surpassing the 29,317 high logged in April during the Shanghai outbreak.
The total caseload since November 1 now stands over 310,000, a surge that has left city governments across China struggling and searching for ways to curb the spread.
Beijing recorded over 1,600 fresh Covid-19 cases for Wednesday, the third consecutive day of 1,000 plus cases, and one death related to the infection, taking the toll to six in the ongoing outbreak.
“The number of new cases of the epidemic continues to increase, and the epidemic spreading significantly,” Xu Hejian, a Beijing government spokesperson was quoted as saying on Thursday.
Several more areas in Beijing were put under targeted lockdowns on Thursday as city authorities attempted to cut transmission chains.
Beijing has converted an exhibition centre into a makeshift hospital to cater to Covid-19 patients,.
Besides Beijing, big outbreaks have been reported in Guangzhou, and Chongqing besides Jinan, Xian, Chengdu and Lanzhou.
The large cities of Guangzhou in south China and Chongqing in the southwest of the country continued to log more than half of the mainland’s cases and continued to implement various kinds of restrictions within city limits.
Several businesses and residential communities remained locked down in Guangzhou and mass tests continued in Chongqing as of Thursday where residents have been asked not to leave the city.
iPhone plant standoff
China has also ordered six million people into lockdown in Zhengzhou city where violent protests broke out at an iPhone factory over Covid isolation policies and working conditions.
A tense face-off between workers at the Foxconn Technology Group plant, which makes Apple iPhones and which has been roiled by Covid-19 for weeks, and security personnel and health work workers continued to disrupt production on Thursday.
“Tech giant Foxconn said it will give newly recruited employees at the world’s largest iPhone assembly plant in the central city of Zhengzhou an option to return home with severance pay after accusations over contract fraud and poor pandemic control measures led to worker unrest,” the Sixthtone news website said in a report.
Apple told AFP it had representatives on the ground at the factory and was “reviewing the situation and working closely with Foxconn to ensure their employees’ concerns are addressed”.