Citizens at home as Beijing fights Covid
Beijing, May 9: Millions of people in Beijing stayed home on Monday as China’s capital tries to fend off a Covid-19 outbreak with creeping restrictions on movement.
Beijing residents fear they may soon find themselves in the grip of the same draconian measures that have trapped most of Shanghai’s 25 million people at home for weeks.
Officials there have said the eastern powerhouse is winning its battle against the country’s worst outbreak since the pandemic began.
Yet the Shanghai lockdown has intensified, causing outrage and rare protest in the last major economy still glued to a zero-Covid policy.
That policy has winded an economy which just months ago had been bouncing back from the pandemic.
Customs data released on Monday said exports in April slumped to their lowest monthly rate since June 2020, as key supply chains became knotted by restrictions.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China found that many of its member companies in Shanghai were still shut, with others delaying investments across the country in the face of the disruption.
Chairman Colm Rafferty warned the business community was “bracing for a mass exodus of foreign talent”. There is also a pressing political dynamic to China’s virus response, with President Xi Jinping pegging the legitimacy of his leadership on protecting Chinese lives from Covid. Xi — expected to secure another five-year term later this year — has doubled down on the zeroCovid approach, despite mounting public frustration.
In Beijing, subway stations and offices were empty during the Mondaymorning rush hour across its most populous district of Chaoyang.