Seen from here, the figures seem laughable, but in China the “zero covid” policy is still in force.
“Since Friday, indicates in its columns the South China Morning Post, 70 new cases of coronavirus have been identified in Beijing, half of them in the Chaoyang district, which has some 3.5 million inhabitants.
A worrying number of contaminations according to Chinese “standards” and which prompted the local authorities to take measures. Thus, this week, three mass testing campaigns are planned for the inhabitants of Chaoyang, with the aim of stopping the chain of contamination. The hope for the local population is to be able to avoid the “Shanghai scenario”, a city where the spread of Omicron prompted the authorities to decree a confinement which has lasted since the beginning of April.
In the metropolis south of Beijing, serious difficulties in the supply of food have also been observed, which today pushes many inhabitants of the capital to stock up.
Proof of this is the testimony of Joseph Li, collected by the Hong Kong daily. The man explains that “Supermarkets were packed on Sunday and the shelves of many online shopping apps were nearly empty.” This testifies to a certain panic of the inhabitants of the capital.
Nevertheless, this young 25-year-old lawyer declares himself “relatively optimistic” and not overly worried about running out of food. Maybe because the city’s supermarket chains “more than doubled their stock and extended opening hours on Sunday,” indicates the South China Morning Post, which still publishes photos taken by Internet users showing practically empty shelves in shops. Snapshots that illustrate the fear of some residents to remain without food, as was the case for residents of Shanghai
To date, reports another article from the Hong Kong newspaper, the situation in the city (still confined) remains very difficult and “Shanghai hospitals are under strain”. However, the official report shows “only” 51 deaths linked to Covid-19 in the city, even if this figure could be clearly underestimated. Indeed, until recently, China has been very reluctant to recognize coronavirus-related deaths in Shanghai, the country also adopts very strict criteria for attributing a death to the virus.