Coronavirus: China’s local transmission crisis eases, eclipsed by imported Covid-19 cases
- On Monday, 51 new cases – including 13 found locally and 38 imported – were reported in China, suggesting success of the country’s strict control measures
- Five officials in Henan province were sacked, accused of poor management of epidemic control measures or containment rules
But China’s zero-tolerance policy stands in contrast with the approach of some countries, such as Britain, that promote the idea of living with the virus – at a cost.
“We expect another slowdown in [quarter-on-quarter] GDP growth in Q3 due to the new Covid outbreak and the accompanying restrictions,” said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at the research firm Oxford Economics. China’s approach, he said, meant future outbreaks would pose significant risk to the country’s outlook.
Of the local cases reported on Monday, Yangzhou in Jiangsu province accounted for six cases, as did Henan province – another focal point of the latest wave of infections – which saw six cases that were previously reported as asymptomatic. In early August, the number of newly reported daily local cases reached as high as three times that of imported cases.
Supply chain disruptions and restrictions to mobility because of Covid-19 outbreaks were a reason for a sharp weakening of growth momentum in China, Kuijs said.
The prices of agricultural produce had risen 50 per cent because of panic buying that saw three times the normal consumption and the sudden restriction of traffic and inflow of people, the Yangzhou government said in a press conference on August 3, when 40 new daily cases were reported and 3,235 people identified as close contacts.