Advertisement
Coronavirus pandemic
EconomyChina Economy

Coronavirus: China’s capital city struggles to get back to normal amid continued outbreak worries

  • Beijing’s Chaoyang district remains the last high-risk area in China, with virus preventive measures continuing to impact on travel and shopping plans
  • China faces the dilemma of preventing a re-emerge of the pandemic, while also pushing to get its economy back to normal

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
China’s continued pandemic prevention measures, coupled with still hesitant consumer demand, will inevitably lead to persistent limitations on the nation’s economic recovery, analysts said. Photo: Bloomberg
Orange Wang

After nearly three months of being quarantined by herself in Beijing, Mary Zhao was looking forward to the upcoming long weekend at the start of May to be able to finally reunite with her parents.

Advertisement

But Zhao was forced to abandon her plan for the Labour Day holidays as Beijing’s upmarket Chaoyang district, where she lives, remains the only high-risk zone for coronavirus in the entire country.

If she travelled the five hours by car, or two hours via bullet train, to the neighbouring Hebei province, she would first have to undergo a 14-day quarantine before seeing her parents. Her parents would also have the same two week quarantine to look forward to once they returned home if they came to visit their daughter in Beijing.

These strict controls to prevent a re-emergence of the coronavirus outbreak are making a return to normal life impossible for many, and mean the final economic and social cost from China’s draconian preventive measures could be much larger than expected.

It underscores the dilemma facing China’s leaders on how to balance the need to restart the economy and to avoid a fresh outbreak. On the surface, China may be able to declare victory as even Wuhan, the city where the virus was first detected, announced that the last Covid-19 patient had left hospital on Sunday. But fears of a renewed outbreak have kept the country’s cinemas and most schools closed, with travel between provinces discouraged.
Advertisement

China’s national borders also remain largely closed, with flights being cut to a minimum, and a mandatory 14-day quarantine for every arrival. In the number of places where new cases have been reported, quarantine requirements have been tightened, including Harbin and a few other cities near the border with Russia.

Advertisement