China announced lockdown again: China placed the 17.5 million residents of the southern city of Shenzhen into lockdown for at least week, seeking to halt a growing Covid-19 outbreak with a move that could cause disruption and production delays in the key technology hub and port. China announced lockdown again after Covid-19 cases rises in country.
The lockdown, which came after virus cases doubled nationwide to nearly 3,400, will be accompanied by three rounds of city-wide, mass testing, according to a government notice. The measure, announced Sunday, followed earlier restrictions placed on Shenzhen’s central business district, and will last until March 20. All bus and subway systems were shut, and businesses, except those providing essential services, have been closed.
Employees were told to work from home if they can. Residents will be barred from leaving Shenzhen home to the headquarters of giants Huawei Technologies Co. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., as well as one of China’s busiest ports — except in limited situations. The surge in infections in the city is thought to be linked to an unbridled outbreak in neighboring Hong Kong, where about 300,000 people are currently in isolation or under home quarantine.
A Covid-19 flareup in Shanghai has also seen most schools returned to online learning and travel into the city restricted. Bus services from other provinces were halted, and China’s aviation regulator is in discussions with airlines about diverting all international flights into the financial center, Bloomberg News reported Friday.
Growing clusters spawned by the highly infectious omicron variant in China’s most developed large cities and economic powerhouses have turned into an unprecedented challenge for the country’s Covid Zero strategy. The policy, which gave China long periods virus free and one of the lowest death rates among major economies, is leaving the country increasingly isolated as other parts of the world open up and live with the virus.
Until now, officials had largely resisted more hardcore measures such as lockdowns in China’s biggest cities and relied more on targeted responses, only to see omicron continue to spread. Covid Zero tactics have led to disruption in other cities, with multiple rounds of mass testing in Tianjin in January halting production at a Toyota Motor Corp. plant and other factories there for more than a week.
The approach will make it harder for Beijing to hit its economic growth target in 2022, as the costs of the measures rise, Nomura Holdings Inc. says. Still, China reiterated its commitment to Covid Zero on Friday, with top health official Ma Xiaowei saying strict controls needed to be kept in place and that officials should avoid “war-weariness” in their work.
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Changchun, a city of some 9 million people in China’s northeast, was locked down on Friday, with residents there also to be mass tested. Reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan, authorities are moving quickly to build makeshift hospitals there and in the eastern port city of Qingdao. China isolates all positive virus cases, regardless of severity, to prevent spread.
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