BEIJING (Reuters) -Mainland China reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in dozens of cities, the highest daily count in about two years, with the Omicron variant forcing a northeastern city to go under lockdown and the financial hub Shanghai to close schools.
The reported daily count of China’s local cases, the highest since the initial nationwide outbreak in early 2020, is much smaller than many others outside China, but the growing number could complicate Beijing’s “dynamic-clearance” ambition to suppress contagion as quickly as possible.
China detected 703 domestically transmitted asymptomatic infections for Thursday, according to data from the health authority on Friday, up from 435 a day earlier.
Another 397 local symptomatic cases, which China classifies separately from symptomless infections, were reported for March. 10, the National Health Commission said.
Several cities with infections have taken measures such as launching multiple rounds of mass testing, limiting vehicular access to highways, cutting face-to-face classes in school and suspending indoor entertainment venues.
In the northeastern province of Jilin, now one of the hardest-hit regions as Omicron has spread in China, its capital Changchun on Friday ordered all but essential businesses to halt operations and banned its 9 million residents from leaving their residential compounds for non-essential reasons.
That followed a similar shutdown in the urban areas of the Jilin city.
COVID CONTROLS
“We will make COVID prevention and control more science-based and targeted according to changes in the epidemic situation and characteristics of the virus,” Premier Li Keqiang told a press conference after the close of the annual parliamentary session in Beijing.
“Since the epidemic started, the service sector has been hit the most, especially those involving in-person contact, of which medium and small-firms account for the majority.”
Major Chinese delivery and logistics firm S.F. Express said on Friday it had suspended deliveries of parcels and mail to the mainland from Hong Kong and Macau, citing the mainland’s virus control requirements, without giving details.
Shanghai, fighting its biggest outbreak in around two years, said it would from Saturday shift classes for all primary, middle and high schools online and suspend kindergartens and preschools.
FRUSTRATION OVER CURBS
Some of the restrictions have started to bite.
Targeted lockdowns of buildings have caused anxiety among residents in Shanghai, while complaints that some university students in Jilin were not promptly moved to designated quarantine sites or had not received certain daily necessities triggered social media anger.
Mainland China’s daily number of local asymptomatic infections have hovered above 300 this week, a sharp increase from a daily average of about 10 such cases in the first two months this year, Reuters calculations showed.
“Infections in vaccinated individuals are more likely to be asymptomatic than infections in unvaccinated individuals, and vaccine coverage is now very high in China,” said Ben Cowling, an epidemiology professor at the University of Hong Kong.
Around 87% of China’s 1.4 billion population had received complete doses for primary vaccination as of late February, and around 40% of the population had received a booster shot.
There have been no new deaths from COVID-19 reported in more than a year. Mainland China’s registered death toll has been static at 4,636 since January 2021.
(Reporting by Roxanne Liu, Albee Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Mark Heinrich)
