Two more Covid deaths as cases rise
BEIJING: Students in schools across several Beijing districts buckled down for online classes on Monday after officials called for residents in some of its hardest-hit areas to stay home, as Covid cases in China’s capital and nationally ticked higher.
China is fighting numerous Covid-19 flare ups, from Zhengzhou in central Henan province to Chongqing in the southwest. It reported 26,824 new local cases for Sunday, nearing the country’s daily pandemic peak in April.
It also recorded two deaths in Beijing, up from one on Saturday, which was China’s first since late May.
Guangzhou, a southern city of nearly 19 million people that is battling the largest of China’s recent outbreaks, ordered a fiveday lockdown for Baiyun, its most populous district. It also suspended dine-in services and shut night clubs and theatres in the city’s main business district.
The latest wave is testing China’s resolve to stick to adjustments it has made to its zeroCovid policy, which calls for cities to be more targeted in their clampdown measures and steer away from widespread lockdowns and testing that have strangled the economy and frustrated residents.
Asian share markets and oil prices slipped on Monday as investors fretted about the economic fallout from the intensifying Covid in China, with the risk aversion benefiting bonds and the dollar.
Beijing reported 962 new infections, up from 621 a day earlier. Its sprawling Chaoyang district, home to 3.5 million people, urged residents to stay home, with schools going online.
Streets were quiet with residents urged to work from home. Stores other than those selling groceries appeared mostly shut.
“You can’t go anywhere.
Everything’s closed. Customers cannot come, either. What can you do? You can do nothing,” said Jia Xi, 32, a medical industry salesman.
Some schools in Haidian, Dongcheng and Xicheng districts also halted in-person teaching.
Several Chinese cities began cutting routine community Covid-19 testing last week, including the northern city of Shijiazhuang, which became the subject of fervent speculation that it could be a test bed for policy relaxation.But late on Sunday, Shijiazhuang announced it would conduct mass testing in six of its eight districts over the next five days after new daily local cases hit 641.
It also encouraged residents to shop online and ordered some schools to suspend in-person teaching.
The People’s Daily newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party on Monday published another article reiterating the need to catch infections early but to avoid taking a “onesize-fits-all” approach, its eighth such piece since China announced its 20 adjusted measures on November 11.