Rapid Rise In COVID-19 Cases In China Raises Concerns About Containment Costs

BEIJING, March 15 – China reported a sharp jump in daily COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, with the number of new cases more than doubling from a day earlier and hitting a two-year high, raising concerns about growing economic country costs. tough containment measures.

More than a dozen provinces and municipalities reported 3,507 cases of intrastate transmission with confirmed symptoms on Monday, up from 1,337 the day before, according to the National Health Commission. Most of the new cases have occurred in the northeastern province of Jilin.

While the number of cases in China is still low by world standards, health experts have said the rate at which daily infections rise over the next few weeks will be a deciding factor in determining whether its tough “dynamic cleanup” approach aims to contain each outbreak as soon as possible. emerges – still effective against the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.

The COVID-19 Prediction System, operated by Lanzhou University in northwest China, has predicted that the current round of infections will eventually be brought under control in early April after a total of about 35,000 cases have been reported.

The university said in its latest assessment released on Monday that while the latest outbreak was the most severe on the mainland since Wuhan in 2020, China can bring it under control as long as strict restrictions remain in place.

Chinese companies ranging from automaker BYD (002594.SZ) to KFC operator Yum China (9987.HK) say their operations have already been hit by the country’s latest COVID-19 restrictions and as cases rise, more cases are expected to more crashes. More

China’s zero-tolerance approach is not only becoming more costly, but it’s also reducing the returns on the highly contagious Omicron, said Yanzhong Huang, senior health policy analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a US think tank.

“Now we have two of China’s richest cities, Shanghai and Shenzhen, both locked down: how will this affect the Chinese economy?” he said.

TRAVEL BANS

In Shanghai’s financial hub, authorities battling the outbreak across the city cordoned off individual apartment buildings and tested residents.

China’s aviation regulator said 106 international flights scheduled to arrive in Shanghai will be diverted to other cities in the country from March 21 to May 1 due to COVID.

The confirmed symptomatic case in Shanghai on Monday stood at 21, including 12 imported from abroad, and another 130 asymptomatic cases.

Nearly 90% of confirmed new symptomatic cases on the mainland on Monday were found in the northeastern province of Jilin, which has banned its 24.1 million residents from entering and leaving the province and various districts in the province without notifying local police. More

Jilin provincial officials should step up preparations for temporary hospitals and designated hospitals, and use unoccupied spaces to ensure the isolation of all infections and their close contacts, a local Communist Party-backed newspaper said, citing a provincial party leader.

The number of new asymptomatic cases that China does not classify as confirmed was 1,768, up from 906 a day earlier.

There were no new deaths, bringing the death toll to 4,636.

As of March 14, mainland China has reported 120,504 cases with confirmed symptoms, including both locals and those arriving from outside the mainland.

Reporting by Roxanne Liu, Albee Zhang, Ryan Wu and David Stanway; Edited by Richard Pullin and Stephen Coates

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