China’s crop of new coronavirus cases defies ‘zero tolerance’ strategy
- More than 200 new infections to start the week, with 69 reported in the southern border province of Guangdong
- Other outbreaks in Jilin province in the northeast and Shandong in the east
Another 54 cases were reported in the Jilin province, more than 2,000km (1,200 miles) to the north, and 46 in the eastern province of Shandong.
In his annual report to the national legislature on Saturday, Premier Li Keqiang said China needed to “constantly refine epidemic containment” but gave no indication Beijing might ease the “zero tolerance” strategy.
Li called for accelerating vaccine development and “strengthening epidemic controls” in cities where travellers and goods arrived from abroad.
China’s zero-Covid policy to stay but may be fine-tuned, premier says
“Zero tolerance” requires quarantines and lockdowns of entire communities and sometimes even cities when as few as a handful of cases have been detected.
Chinese officials credit the approach – along with a vaccination rate of more than 80 per cent – with helping prevent a major nationwide outbreak, but critics say it is taking a major toll on the economy and preventing the population from building up natural immunity.
No new cases were reported in Beijing and the city was largely back to normal, although masks continue to be worn in public places indoors.
One area that continues to feel the effects of tight Covid-19 control is the religious sector. Three of Beijing’s best-known Catholic churches, Buddhist temples and mosques said on Sunday they had been ordered closed in January with no date given on reopening.
Even before the pandemic, such institutions were under heavy pressure from the communist authorities to follow through on demands from leader Xi Jinping that all religious centres be purged of outside influence, including the physical appearance of places of worship.
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Streets and trains empty in central Chinese city of Anyang as Covid-19 lockdown begins
The latest daily case numbers mark some of the highest since the initial outbreak in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019 that is believed to have sparked the pandemic.
They bring China’s total to 111,195 with 4,636 deaths, according to the National Health Commission. At present, 3,837 people are receiving treatment for Covid-19, many of them infected with the Omicron strain.
