Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING – Days after China relaxed some Covid controls, outbreaks of the virus in various parts of the country have put new areas on alert. The number of cities restricting local travel more than doubled in a week to 11 as of Monday, from five a week earlier, according to Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura. The latest measures affect regions accounting for about 14.9 percent of China’s GDP, up from 10.1 percent the previous week, Nomura said. The daily number of Covid cases in mainland China, including those without symptoms, has risen from a handful to around 200 or 300 new cases in recent days. Most are asymptomatic. Many of the new cases are in the area around Shanghai. The nearby city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province said late Saturday that bars and gyms would have to close temporarily, while restaurants could only offer takeout. Last week, a much smaller region called Si County in neighboring Anhui Province ordered residents to stay indoors and leave only at designated times for virus tests. In June, Beijing and Shanghai scrambled to resume normal business after weeks of restrictions that had kept children out of school and many restaurants virtually closed. The southeastern metropolis of Shanghai was hit by far the hardest and was locked down for April and May. Last week, mainland China lifted its quarantine period for international travelers and close contacts of Covid cases. The country also changed a national travel system that would theoretically make it easier to move around the country. The daily number of Covid cases in Beijing and Shanghai has dropped to single digits or zero in recent days. “Markets could become a bit too complacent if they ignore the recovery in coronavirus cases and underestimate the cost of persistent coronavirus containment measures,” Nomura’s Lu said in a report on Monday.
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In addition to new cases on the mainland in economic powerhouses such as Jiangsu province, Lu noted the spread of Covid to nearby economies – evident in the climbing number of cases in Hong Kong and a daily average of more than 100 new deaths in Taiwan last year. week. Mainland China has reported no new deaths from Covid in weeks. “We have been in the upward phase of China’s ‘Covid Business Cycle (CBC)’ since late May, thanks to the reduction in the number of Covid-19 cases, the lifting of lockdowns and other easing of the Zero Covid Strategy (ZCS) restrictions and stimulus measures “, he said. “However, another Omicron wave could lead to a return to a downtrend phase, although the timing of such an event is uncertain.”
