Covid-19 in China

[Randy W]

A Wal-Mart in #Shenzhen (Hongling branch in Futian) was sealed off this morning after an employee and his family were diagnosed with #Covid. Residents in multiple areas in Shenzhen were requested to do a 3rd round of nucleic acid testing today.

from Shenzhen Pages on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/shenzhenpages/videos/451973503041418/

[Randy W]

China's Tianjin orders more testing on 14 million after omicron reaches city

from NPR and the AP

Tianjin's COVID-19 prevention and control office said all who have tested positive in the initial testing round were found to have the omicron variant, of which China has so far only reported a handful of cases. The source of the outbreak is still unknown and many who are spreading the strain may be doing so unwittingly because they show no symptoms.

Also in the north, two college students who traveled earlier this month by train from Tianjin tested positive for the virus Wednesday morning in the city of Dalian, city officials said. There was no word on what variant they had contracted.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

China has blocked more than a dozen recent and future flights from entering the country, which has been tightening already-strict COVID-19 travel restrictions.

from Chron (Houston Chronicle) on Facebook
DAVID KOENIG, AP Airlines Writer
https://www.facebook.com/chroncom/posts/10160784688417814

Same article not pay-walled from USAToday

 

US airlines say China is forcing them to cancel some flights
U.S. airlines say China has blocked more than a dozen recent and future flights from entering the country, which has been tightening already-strict COVID-19 travel restrictions.

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China ordered the cancellations after some passengers tested positive for COVID-19 on flights that arrived in China in late December, according to industry officials.

American Airlines said Tuesday that six of its flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Shanghai in late January and early February have been canceled. United Airlines said it was forced to cancel six flights from San Francisco to Shanghai later this month. Delta Air Lines said it canceled one flight last week and another this Friday to Shanghai.

Airlines for America, which represents the largest U.S. passenger and cargo carriers, said it was discussing the matter with U.S. and Chinese government officials to find ways to minimize the impact on travelers.

 

Same article not pay-walled from USAToday

US airlines blame China for some flight cancellations as restrictions tighten ahead of Olympics

Edited January 14, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

 

Beijing records first local case of Omicron ahead of Winter Olympics and Lunar New Year

Beijing has recorded its first case involving the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

https://www.facebook.com/scmp/videos/516625399600873/

 

[Randy W]

Did Omicron arrive in China’s capital Beijing by mail from Canada?

• City’s first case of the Covid-19 variant received a letter from Toronto with traces of the virus, health authorities say
• Canada’s public health agency and other experts around the world say there is low risk of spreading through goods or packages

Beijing residents have been warned to take care opening their mail after health authorities said they found the Covid-19 Omicron variant on a letter from Canada. Photo: Reuters
 

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Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, said the city’s first Covid-19 patient to be diagnosed with the variant had received a letter mailed from Canada on January 7.

“We do not rule out the possibility that the person was infected through contacting an object from overseas,” she said.
Chinese authorities have repeatedly said they are finding the coronavirus on contaminated imports, usually frozen goods. Some researchers and health authorities overseas have raised doubts about this method of transmission, arguing that the virus does not survive long enough on surfaces.

This view is shared by Canada’s public health agency, which has previously said there is no evidence of Covid-19 being transmitted by imported goods or packages.

 

 

[Randy W]

With the Lunar New Year peak travel and the Beijing Winter Olympics just weeks away, China is on high alert to ward off any large #COVID-19 outbreaks. Dozens of international flights have been canceled as the country reports a surge in COVID-19 infections among inbound passengers.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3137114923274013

‘Returning to China Is Like Buying a Lottery Ticket’
Dozens of international flights have been canceled as the country reports a surge in COVID-19 infections among inbound passengers.
 

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Liang has been waking up in the wee hours of the morning for almost a month — it’s not nightmares giving her sleepless nights, but the thought of whether she can return home to China soon.

The 43-year-old, who only gave her surname to speak with Sixth Tone, is currently in Sweden, where she taps her phone every day, precisely at 3 a.m., when authorities release the official daily coronavirus updates in China. She has been scrambling to board a flight to attend to her ailing mother, who has cancer, but all four flights she has booked for early January have been canceled due to the country’s “circuit breaker” policy.

China implemented the policy in June 2020, reducing the number of seats or temporarily suspending flights found to be carrying a certain number of passengers who test positive for the virus upon landing in the country. With COVID-19 infections spiking globally, Chinese authorities said “imported cases” have risen significantly, with Shanghai reporting the highest number since the start of the pandemic.

 . . .

As of Jan. 16, the number of seats for inbound flights from North America and Western Europe scheduled during Jan. 17-30 to China dropped 43% and 21%, respectively, compared with data released Jan. 10, according to figures from air travel intelligence company OAG shared with Sixth Tone. Reuters reported that as of Jan. 12 this year, some 70 flights from the United States to China had been canceled alone.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

“If a company is rich enough, I would say it isn’t that bad,” a woman who spent last weekend quarantined with many of her colleagues in their office in Shanghai’s downtown Jing’an District told Sixth Tone.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3139402019711970

Colleague Might Have COVID-19? Time for an Office Sleepover!
As China fights a new outbreak, office workers are being called into the office for two-day quarantines.

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According to China’s latest national guidelines on COVID-19 control, authorities are supposed to isolate both close contacts of patients and close contacts of those close contacts. If the first degree tests negative twice, their contacts can end observation after one week.

The national document doesn’t specify the locations for seven-day observation, which are left to local governments to decide.

 

 

[Randy W]

I'm going to guess that this won't change until after the Olympics.

US suspends flights by China carriers after Beijing COVID move

Authorities in US to cut some flights by four Chinese carriers after Beijing stopped some services by US carriers after the discovery of COVID cases.

from AL Jazeera 

China Eastern is one of four Chinese airlines affected by the US flight suspension [File: Kamil Krzaczynski/Reuters]

Published On 22 Jan 202222 Jan 2022

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The suspensions will begin on January 30 with Xiamen Airlines’ scheduled Los Angeles-to-Xiamen flight and continue until March 29, the Department of Transportation said.

The decision will cut some flights by Xiamen, Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines.

Chinese authorities have suspended 20 United Airlines, 10 American Airlines and 14 Delta Air Lines flights since December 31, after some passengers tested positive for COVID-19. As recently as Tuesday, the Department of Transportation said the Chinese government had announced new US flight cancellations.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said on Friday the policy for international passenger flights entering China had “been applied equally to Chinese and foreign airlines in a fair, open and transparent way”.

He called the US move “very unreasonable” and added, “We urge the US side to stop disrupting and restricting the normal passenger flights” by Chinese airlines.

Airlines for America, a trade group representing the three US carriers affected by China’s move along with others, said it supported Washington’s action “to ensure the fair treatment of US airlines in the Chinese market”.

 

 

[Randy W]

Woman’s diary goes viral as lockdown in China forces her to stay with blind date
Wang went for dinner at date’s house in Zhengzhou when Covid forced thousands into quarantine

Volunteers wearing PPE spray disinfectant in Zhengzhou, China. Photograph: VCG/Getty

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Wang went for dinner on Sunday at her blind date’s residence in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, where a recent outbreak of Covid cases sent thousands into quarantine in parts of the city. As she was finishing her meal, the area was put under lockdown.

She was unable to leave her date’s house as result, she told the Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper this week, saying she had gone to the city for a week-long trip to meet potential suitors from the southern province of Guangdong.

Wang quickly shared the bizarre experience with friends on social media. “I’m getting old now, my family introduced me to 10 matches … The fifth date wanted to show off his cooking skills and invited me over to his house for dinner,” said Wang in one of the videos.

 . . .

“Besides the fact he’s as mute as a wooden mannequin, everything else [about him] is pretty good,” Wang told the Paper on Tuesday. “Despite his food being mediocre, he’s still willing to cook, which I think is great.”

Although Wang did not seem to complain about the experience, the prolonged lockdown has not caused romance to bloom.

 

 

 

 

[Randy W]

Someone posted this on Facebook in response to a question about shipping from England to China

Quote

A word of warning for now.
My son has asked me not to send at the moment because there is a fear that international parcels are carrying the virus.
There are stories that people receiving international mail have their health codes turn yellow which impedes their movements.
So maybe ask her whether she actually wants you to send right now.

 

[Randy W]

"If they buy, we’re alive. If they don’t, we’re dead." With strict rules to limit the spread of the coronavirus, China has closed land borders and tightened screening for goods, at times driving Southeast Asian fruit farmers into debt.

from the NY Times on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/posts/10152867353144999

A Side-Effect of China’s Strict Virus Policy: Abandoned Fruit
The closure of Chinese land borders and the tightened screening of goods have driven Southeast Asian fruit farmers into debt. Many have had to abandon their harvest.

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HANOI, Vietnam — At Pham Thanh Hong’s dragon fruit orchard in Vietnam, most of the lights are turned off. All is silent except for the periodic thud of the ripe pink fruit falling to the ground.

Mr. Pham, 46, is not bothering to harvest them.

The farmer watched dragon fruit prices plummet by 25 percent in the last week of December to near zero, pushed down by what several officials in Vietnam say is China’s “zero-Covid” policy. “I’m too disheartened to use my strength to pick them up, then throw them away,” Mr. Pham said.

Selling fruit to China in the coronavirus pandemic is not for the fainthearted.

China has gone to great lengths to keep the virus out of its borders. It has screened mail and tested thousands of packages of fruit and frozen foods despite little evidence that the virus can be transmitted through such products. It has locked down entire cities, leaving Chinese citizens stranded without medicine or food.

That strict virus policy has also had alarming consequences well beyond China. Southeast Asian fruit farmers are especially vulnerable because so much of the region’s exports are directed toward the country. In 2020, the total fruit exports from Southeast Asia to China stood at roughly $6 billion.

 

 

[Randy W]

An email from the SCMP - 

Hello again, Global Impact readers:

We have all lived with the coronavirus and its consequences for the best part of two years, but in China those limitations on movement and citywide lockdowns are among the most notorious and strict in the world.

Have they worked? The numbers seem to suggest yes, but what about the lives of people living on the other side of the barriers, required to take numerous tests and be cut off from their families with limited access to food and basic essentials?

This week Peter Langan, a Senior Editor with the China Desk here at the SCMP, brings us up to speed on China’s so-called zero-Covid approach, its implications and the prospects of it changing any time soon. 

Best,
Andrew Mullen
Production Editor, Political Economy

China’s attempt to stamp out Covid-19 takes a far-reaching toll

Since the Sars-CoV-2 virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan more than two years ago, the country’s authorities have stuck with what has been termed zero-tolerance to any outbreaks of the Covid-19 respiratory disease caused by the virus.

This policy translates into citywide lockdowns once a case is discovered, often involving millions of people, along with mass repeated testing to try and identify the source.

Extensive contact-tracing, long quarantines, suspension of transport services and tough border controls are part and parcel of these lockdown strategies, which aim to choke off any virus outbreak before it can take hold in the broader community.

Add to that a “traffic light” smartphone bar code health app that needs to scan green to travel or gain access to public places, such as shopping centres and hospitals.

The 13 million residents of the city of Xian in northwest China went through the full lockdown regime for a couple of weeks in December after a flurry of confirmed infections that spread to almost 2,000 people.

Xian’s outbreak, the worst reported in the country since the original in Wuhan, saw local authorities administer tens of millions of tests in the city to control it, which they eventually did.

The city reported no deaths attributed to Covid-19 and China itself last reported a fatality linked to the disease more than one year ago on January 25, 2001, in Jilin province in the  northeast.

The total number of deaths in China blamed on Covid-19 stands at 4,636, according to the National Health Commission. Authorities in the country say this relatively low number – the US by comparison has reported 890,000 Covid-linked fatalities – shows the success of China’s approach. But critics say it’s a whack-a-mole response that incurs other costs.

Comments on social media from Xian residents during the recent outbreak illustrate some of the damaging repercussions of blanket crackdowns, including loss of life.

A video that appeared for a short time on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, showed a woman in Xian who was said to be eight-months pregnant and losing blood refused entry to a hospital because she lacked a valid negative Covid-19 test.

The post on Weibo, which had millions of views before it was removed, said the woman lost the baby. This was followed by a post about another pregnant woman in Xian suffering blood loss. She also reportedly lost her child when she was refused treatment at several hospitals because the area she lived in was under strict lockdown.

In yet another Weibo post, a woman in Xian said her father was refused entry to a hospital amid Covid-19 restrictions after suffering chest pains. She said he later died of a heart attack.

Xian-based freelance journalist Jiang Xue wrote an account of life in the city under lockdown titled “10 days in Xian” and posted it to social media network WeChat.

She spoke of the other costs of the lockdown policies in service breakdowns and shortages that forced residents to barter for food, while living in fear of being taken to quarantine centres if found to be infected.

Beside these personalised accounts of how the zero-Covid strategy disrupts the lives of millions under lockdown, academics and economists are also starting to warn of the potential damage the policy is having on China’s own economy.

They caution that as the US and major economies in Europe relax Covid restrictions, China’s policies could result in local companies falling behind.

Hong Kong has largely followed Beijing’s policies in dealing with Covid-19 – though the city stood out for its now infamous “hamster cull”. However, Hong Kong is reportedly considering the shift from zero-Covid to living with Covid. Unfortunately, too late for the hamsters.

Businesspeople in mainland China say if there is any official shift in Covid policy, they don’t expect it will happen until after March, or following the National People’s Congress, the country’s top decision-making body, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Lawyers in China have also waded into the debate, noting that Covid-19 itself is a disaster, but “secondary disasters” have followed in how law enforcement and local officials have imposed a one-size-fits-all approach on communities when an infection is found.

All too often, lawyers say, that’s out of fear of losing their own jobs for failing to execute official policy rather than respecting the rights of China’s citizens.

[Randy W]

Chinese scientists have designed a new COVID-19 test that can give results in less than four minutes with high accuracy, according to a study published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.

from the Sixth Tone on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/sixthtone/posts/3153968851588620

Chinese Scientists Have Designed a 4-Minute COVID-19 Test
Polymerase chain reaction testing is currently considered the gold standard in diagnosing COVID-19, but results usually take hours.

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The new technology uses a device that can detect the presence of the virus’ genetic material in the form of electric signals, said the authors of the study published Monday. They said the test was capable of finding small traces of the virus in the sputum of an infected individual.

“(The tool) may be advantageous in that it offers rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids, easy operation, high sensitivity and specificity, and portability,” the authors said, referring to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The team, led by researchers from Shanghai’s Fudan University, ran more than 80 nasal swab samples — from people infected with COVID-19 and the flu, as well as healthy individuals — using the device, and was able to detect all 33 COVID-19 specimens in between six seconds to four minutes, depending on the viral load.

Currently, polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, testing is considered the gold standard in diagnosing COVID-19, as recognized by the World Health Organization and health authorities around the globe. However, PCR tests usually take hours to accurately detect the virus’ genetic materials in a laboratory setting.

Recently, several governments have also opted to use the more convenient, at-home rapid antigen test kits, which give results in about 15 minutes. However, these tend to be less accurate than PCR tests, as they can miss detection in samples with lower viral loads.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

City of Suzhou newest front in China’s all-out battle against Omicron coronavirus variant

After seven people linked to an industrial estate tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant on February 13, 2022, the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou banned all public gatherings and postponed the start of the spring school semester. Mass screening was under way and production stopped in at least one semiconductor chip plant in the Suzhou Industrial Park. Officials are aiming to maintain low numbers of Covid infections during the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.
 

[Randy W]

‘My heart is numb’: Chinese students stranded in U.S. by coronavirus
Lack of flights, strict quarantine requirements and their own Covid-19 infections are making it difficult for Chinese students abroad to travel home.

from NBCNews

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Tim Fan was so close to getting home. For the first time since before the pandemic, he was on a plane to China, looking forward to seeing his family and celebrating his recent graduation from a college in Washington state.

But halfway into the 12-hour flight from Seattle to Shanghai in late December, the Delta Air Lines plane made a sudden U-turn back to the United States. The airline cited burdensome new disinfection procedures at the airport in Shanghai, which Chinese officials disputed.

Almost two months later, Fan is still in Seattle, his journey home hindered by a lack of flights, exorbitant ticket prices and his own Covid-19 infection. Chinese rules prevent him from entering the country until well after he is recovered.

While he waits, he is paying $2,400 a month for an Airbnb, four times more than his rent while in school. This month he spent the Lunar New Year, China’s most important holiday, separated from his family in Shenzhen.

“My heart is numb and has no feeling,” said Fan, 22. “I’ve reached my lowest in terms of luck.”

Two years into the pandemic, as much of the world is easing restrictions, students like Fan still face great difficulty in traveling home to China. The country’s strict “zero-Covid” strategy includes closing its borders to almost all foreigners, but it creates obstacles for Chinese nationals as well. 

Chief among them is the paltry number of flights. The number of international flights to China is down to 200 a week, 2.2 percent of pre-pandemic levels, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said last year.

That is partly because China has a policy of suspending both domestic and foreign airlines from certain routes for up to four weeks if too many passengers test positive for the virus upon arrival. In recent weeks, China has suspended 44 inbound flights operated by U.S. carriers, prompting U.S. officials to suspend the same number of China-bound flights run by Chinese airlines.