"Renewed restrictions, notably the lockdown in Shenzhen, will weigh on consumption and cause supply disruptions in the near term," Tommy Wu of Oxford Economics said in a briefing note. "And now it starts again, when will it ever end?" Economic clouds gatherĮxperts forecast a dent to economic growth as the virus billows out. "The control measures were doing pretty well before," Beijinger Yan told AFP, giving one name. Others expressed exasperation as the pandemic grinds on in China, while much of the world tries to return to normal. "But this time they are letting people isolate at home. I was afraid they'd take us to a quarantine hotel," the 34-year-old told AFP. "I panicked when the health officials called. Scenes of closed neighbourhoods, panic buying and police cordons cast back to the early phase of the pandemic, which first emerged in China in late 2019.Īlthough cases from the chaotic initial outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020 are widely believed to have been under-reported, life since then had largely returned to normal in China under its strict zero-Covid approach.īut as lockdowns edge closer to Beijing, public venues have tightened their scrutiny of ubiquitous health QR codes.įrom a 21-day home quarantine with her mother and three-year-old child, project manager Mary Yue said she was forced to isolate after virus cases were linked to a playground they had visited. Shenzhen - the southern tech hub of 17.5 million people - is three days into a lockdown with many factories closed and supermarket shelves emptying, while China's largest city Shanghai is under a lattice of restrictions.Ĭity officials said at a Tuesday press conference that "it is not necessary to lock down Shanghai at present", instead opting for more "precise" measures. Health officials said over 8,200 Jilin residents have now been hospitalised, with the vast majority showing mild or no symptoms. Residents of several cities there including the provincial capital of Changchun - home to nine million people - are under stay-at-home orders. The northeastern province of Jilin has been worst-hit by Omicron with over 3,000 new cases on Tuesday, according to the National Health Commission. Health official Jiao Yahui said at a press briefing Tuesday that "the risk of severe illness is very high" for people in that age group. Health officials urged people over 60 to get vaccinated - including the third booster jab - as soon as possible.Īround 80 percent of people in that age group are double-vaccinated, according to official data - but Beijing is anxiously watching the situation over the border in Hong Kong, which now has the world's highest virus death rates due to low inoculation among its oldest residents. That approach, which pivots on hard localised lockdowns and has left China virtually cut off from the outside world for two years, appears stretched to the limit as Omicron finds its way into communities.Īt least 13 cities nationwide were fully locked down as of Tuesday, and several others had partial lockdowns, with some 15,000 infections reported nationwide in March. Macron was now capable of “challenging” his own health minister and experts.China reported 5,280 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, more than double the previous day's tally, as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spread across a country that has stuck tightly to a zero-Covid strategy. Macron “were impressed by the mastery of the head of state, who has kept up with numerous research studies on the subject of the coronavirus.” According to the article, Mr. “It’s not an inaccessible subject for an intellect like his and given the significant time he’s devoted to it for several months.” “The president has acquired a real expertise on issues of health,” his national education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, was quoted as saying in Le Monde. The president was much less dependent on experts than he had been a year earlier, they said, because he had studied and read so much on the virus. Macron had ignored the advice of epidemiologists. That strategy has sometimes taken on strange twists, as when his entourage this week seemed to try to fend off criticism that Mr. Macron’s handling of the virus crisis, distancing him when trouble has emerged and moving him closer when things have looked up. In recent months, the Élysée has tried to finesse Mr. Macron’s Wednesday speech, with ministers admitting, albeit anonymously, to the French news media that they had no idea what measures would be put in effect. As in previous key moments in the pandemic, rumors had circulated for days before Mr. Macron’s strategy reflected the reality that, in France’s system of government, power is intensely concentrated in the hands of the president.
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