Bloomberg News
June 20, 2022
China’s spring outbreak of Covid-19 continues to subside, but a single local case in Shenzhen detected on Saturday triggered mass testing and neighborhood lockdowns in some parts of the technology hub. Two cases were eventually reported for Saturday, with none on Sunday.
Nationwide, China is reporting the lowest number of new cases since early February. Of its top 50 cities by economic size, none currently have widespread restrictions in place. Recent outbreaks in Beijing and Inner Mongolia look to have been brought under control.
Still, targeted curbs have been imposed. In-person teaching at elementary schools in Beijing and Shanghai is still halted, and some specific residential areas are locked down. A growing outbreak in Macau, its first in eight months, has triggered more restrictions in the world’s largest gaming hub, and the lockdown of at least two districts in neighboring Zhuhai on the mainland.
Shanghai is requiring everyone in the city to get tested each weekend. Many districts in Beijing and in other cities are also requiring regular testing, especially for workers in high-risk industries, including taxi drivers and retail employees.
Shenzhen imposed isolation orders for several residential compounds in the Futian and Luohu districts that border Hong Kong after each reported an asymptomatic infection. As cases increase in Macau, neighboring Zhuhai locked down the area of the border crossing — Hengqin — as well as Gongbei and Qianshan Baishi. All schools and restaurants are closed, public transportation is shut and no one can leave for three days.
The spread of the highly contagious omicron variant spurred increasingly stringent pandemic curbs in China between March and early June, in some cases triggering extensive lockdowns that carried heavy costs for the local population and economy. The country’s deployment of restrictions, which can come with little to no warning, shows it continues to pursue a zero-tolerance strategy that’s left it isolated from the rest of the world.
Tracking the cases and the curbs could offer insight into what regions may be vulnerable to disruption in the days ahead.
Covid-19 data for Sunday, June 12
- Twenty-three of China’s 31 mainland provinces had no cases in the past week, with only Beijing seeing more than 20 cases a day on average.
- China reported 24 new infections overall on Sunday, with 13 in Shanghai.
Movement Indicators
- As the outbreak has subsided people are going out more, with the number of subway trips last week up almost 9% compared to the same time last year.
- People took an average of 47 million subway trips each day of the week through Thursday in the top 11 cities.
- The Shanghai subway system is also returning to normal, with people taking almost 6 million rides last Thursday. That’s still less than the 9.8 million on average each day in 2021, but an improvement on the situation in April and May.
- Inter-province travel is still limited by various restrictions on movement, with some domestic travelers forced to quarantine in hotels due to outbreaks where they are from or because they have come from medium or high-risk areas such as Shanghai.
— With assistance by James Mayger, Linda Lew, Daniela Wei, Shirley Zhao, Claire Che, Davy Zhu, and Dong Lyu