China on Saturday reported its highest number of coronavirus cases since May, with millions in lockdown this weekend as authorities persist with their zero-Covid policy.
Using snap lockdowns, long quarantines and mass testing, China is the last major economy still pursuing the goal of eliminating outbreaks, even as the strategy takes a heavy toll on the economy.
China reported 450 local infections on Saturday, up from 432 a day earlier. Most cases were asymptomatic.
The rising wave of cases led to fresh restrictions this week in some parts of the country.
Lanzhou, the capital of northwestern Gansu province, ordered its 4.4 million residents to stay home starting on Wednesday, and a county in Anhui province went into lockdown on Friday.
Beihai in the southern Guangxi region on Saturday also announced lockdowns in parts of two districts that are home to more than 800,000 people.
“Currently, the epidemic prevention and control situation in Beihai city is severe and complicated, and the risk of hidden transmission in the community is relatively high,” said a government notice announcing the restrictions.
Earlier in the week, the steelmaking hub of Wugang in central Henan province announced a three-day lockdown over a single Covid case.
The fast-spreading Omicron variant of the virus has been a major challenge for Chinese authorities, as they try to limit the economic damage caused by Covid restrictions.
China logged its slowest second-quarter growth rate since the initial Covid outbreak, with GDP expanding just 0.4% on-year and contracting by 2.6% from the previous quarter.
For the first half, the Chinese economy expanded by just 2.55, well short of the authorities’ full-year target of 5.5%.
Macau lockdown extended
In a related development, the government of Macau said it would extend a lockdown of casinos and other businesses until Friday, as authorities grapple to stop the spread of Covid in the world’s biggest gambling hub.
The lockdown in the Chinese special administrative region had been due to end on Monday.
Macau imposed the shutdown last Monday, shuttering the city’s economic engine — its casinos — and forbidding residents from leaving their apartments, except for essential activities such as grocery shopping.
Macau has recorded around 1,700 coronavirus infections since mid-June. More than 20,000 people are in mandatory quarantine as the government adheres to the mainland’s zero-Covid policy.
More than 90% of Macau’s 600,000 residents are fully vaccinated but this is the first time the city has had to grapple with the Omicron variant.
The former Portuguese colony has only one public hospital, and its medical system was already stretched before the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities have set up a makeshift hospital in a sports dome near the city’s Las Vegas-style Cotai strip and have around 600 medical workers from the mainland assisting them.
In neighbouring Hong Kong, authorities are starting to loosen draconian coronavirus restrictions even as daily cases top 3,000, in a push to reboot the financial hub and its economy.
