In addition to the lockdown in the provincial capital of Shaanxi, millions of corona tests are also expected to help contain the outbreak.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf China cordoned off the metropolis of Xi’an on Thursday to fight a Covid outbreak. It’s the biggest lockdown since the Wuhan pandemic broke out. The authorities had previously found 127 Covid infections in mass tests.
There is a strict curfew for the 13 million inhabitants. They have not been allowed to leave their apartments since midnight. Companies like the electric car manufacturer BYD cut back their local production.
China has a strict zero-covid strategy. Even in individual corona cases, entire apartment blocks are cordoned off and quarantined. The few travelers who are allowed into the country have to quarantine several weeks in a hotel room.
In this way, the People’s Republic has long managed to contain the epidemic to a large extent. In the summer, China had no locally transmitted new infections for months.
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But since the travel month of October, the country has been struggling with outbreaks in various provinces, each of which reacts with hard lockdowns. After the strategy enabled the Chinese economy to recover quickly, it is now increasingly suffering from repeated lockdowns.
China’s top-selling electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD, cut production at its Xi’an plant as a result of the lockdown, according to the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. This delays the delivery of popular models, said the company, in which US investor Warren Buffett is involved.
In addition to BYD, the South Korean company Samsung Electronics and the US semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology also produce in Xi’an. There are also many research and production centers for semiconductors, aerospace and other high-tech industries in the capital of Shaanxi Province. The city’s economy contributes around one percent to Chinese economic output, according to data from the information service provider Wind.
The eruption in the city of Xi’an, known among tourists for its terracotta army, underscores the challenge the country faces with a view to the Beijing Winter Olympics. These take place in February.
The pandemic confronts the organizers in their own words with “tremendous pressure and challenges”. The spread of the new virus variant Omikron brings “great uncertainty for the global Covid situation,” said Han Zirong, Vice President of the Organizing Committee, to the press in Beijing on Thursday.
Chinese vaccines with low effectiveness against Omikron
Most of the Chinese are vaccinated. However, there are doubts about the effectiveness of Chinese vaccines against the new Omikron variant. Recent studies have suggested that even booster vaccinations with the most widespread vaccines in the country, Sinopharm and Sinovac, are less effective. So far, only Chinese vaccines have been approved in the People’s Republic.
It is not yet known which virus strain is circulating in Xi’an. In addition to the lockdown, millions of corona tests are also expected to help contain the outbreak.
The situation should also be checked with numerous corona tests.
(Photo: AP)
Infected people and their close contacts should be brought to hospital or quarantine, and all transmission routes should be interrupted. Schools have been closed – as have shops that are not absolutely necessary for supplies.
Each family can designate a member who can go shopping every two days, as the city government announced in its decree. Transport connections were also largely interrupted. Much of the flights to Xi’an have been canceled.
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