Coronavirus: China pays a high cost to keep the virus at bay ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics
- Restrictions have hit foreigners wanting to enter China, Chinese wanting to go overseas and domestic holiday travel seasons
- Experts suggest China adopt more flexible tactics because ‘zero tolerance’ is too disruptive and new variants may be impossible to eradicate
Most of China is virus-free but the abrupt, severe response to outbreaks has left would-be tourists jittery about travelling to places they might be barred from leaving. That has hit consumer spending, hindering efforts to keep the economic recovery on track.
“Two years ago, this was our busiest season,” said the Beizhong agency manager, Wang Hui.
“Now, customers tend to postpone their plans because of the outbreaks,” Wang said. “This year is worse than last year.”
China is closed to most foreign visitors and discourages its own public from travelling.
The government has yet to give final details about anti-coronavirus measures for the Winter Games. Some 2,900 athletes are due to compete, plus 800 more in the Paralympic Winter Games on March 4-13.
“The zero-tolerance policy has been highly effective in putting Covid under control, but the short-term cost is also extremely high,” economists Larry Hu and Xinyu Ji of Macquarie said in a report.
Covid-19: China’s zero-tolerance policy will remain in force for now
The International Monetary Fund and private sector forecasters have lowered economic growth forecasts but still expect output to rise by as much as 8.5 per cent this year, up sharply from last year’s multi-decade low of 2.3 per cent and well above the ruling party target of “more than 6 per cent”.
Exports in August rose 25.6 per cent over a year earlier, but retail spending growth slowed to 2.5 per cent from July’s 8.5 per cent.
“People are clearly worried that they could get trapped in tourist destinations if Covid cases emerge,” economist Iris Pang of ING said in a report.
Xiamen, a coastal business centre in Fujian with 3.5 million people, closed off access to some neighbourhoods after cases were detected there. Schools shut down.
An entrepreneur who sells shoes made in Putian online said the outbreak and anti-disease controls had shut down that local industry.
“Customers are urging us to deliver goods, but factories have stopped working,” said the merchant, Su Ye. She said September and October usually were busy, but disruptions in production and delivery “will cause orders to drop a lot”.
“Many orders were cancelled because of our slow delivery,” Su said.
The Global Times said a man who returned from Singapore on August 4 was suspected of spreading the virus to Putian.
The traveller, identified by the surname Lin, underwent a 14-day quarantine and nine nucleic acid and serologic tests, all of which were negative, the Global Times said. But he tested positive on September 10.
Despite that, the screening and quarantine process was working properly, according to Yu Changping, a doctor at the Department of Respiratory Medicine of People’s Hospital of Wuhan University.
“There is no special change in the situation,” said Yu. “There is no need to adopt measures different from the past.”
Some experts suggest China might need to adopt more flexible tactics because “zero tolerance” is too disruptive and new variants might be impossible to eradicate.
“The bottom line is, I don’t think they can keep the virus out, and they need to live with the reality,” said Nicholas Thomas, a professor of health security at City University of Hong Kong.
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Authorities are also trying to keep Chinese from leaving the country. The government refuses to issue or renew passports without an important need to travel. Businesspeople have been told that does not include visiting customers or business partners.
“As far as the vaccine strategy is, it’s been very successful, the trouble is the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines are not very efficacious against Delta,” Thomas said.
As is true elsewhere, online grocers and other e-commerce have reaped a windfall from shutdowns and lockdowns.
But a wave of bankruptcies has hit small shops, restaurants and other businesses.
China’s populous domestic market means travel restrictions “do not impact it as much as countries such as Thailand that depend heavily on tourism,” said Trinh Nguyen of Natixis, a French financial firm, in an email.
China’s Covid-hit travel market faces new test after Fujian outbreak
In another blow to tourism, the government told students and teachers to avoid travel during September’s Mid-Autumn Festival and the October 1-7 National Day break.
“There used to be a silver September and a golden October for travel, but now we have nothing,” said Wang, the travel agency manager in Tianjin.
People suffering from cancer, heart disease and other chronic, potentially life-threatening conditions, meanwhile have struggled to get treatment as hospitals shut down other departments to focus on treating coronavirus patients or refused to accept cases deemed non-emergency.