China has imposed partial lockdowns in Shanghai and Shenzhen as it grapples with a surge in COVID-19 cases, raising concerns of new global supply chain disruptions and threatening the country’s economic growth target.
Economists warned of massive disruptions for manufacturers due to port, airport and factory closures as the country’s richest regions go into lockdowns.
Most big businesses and industrial parks in Shanzhen were locked down as the government launched a testing program across the city of 17.5 million residents.
Shanghai, China’s main financial hub and home to thousands of Australian expatriates, residents were advised on the weekend not to leave. The city, China’s largest with almost 25 million people, is virtually cut off from the rest of the country with long-distance buses suspended. Schools have been closed, with classes moving online, and many white-collar employees working from home on Monday.
Hong Kong has about 30,000 cases per day and China has about 3000 cases per day. China still has a zero tolerance COVID policy which triggers large lockdowns.
Many of China’s elderly are vaccinated with locally produced vaccines, but they do not have access to more effective mRNA vaccines. Experts have warned that this would result in high death rates if there was a major outbreak.
Shenzhen goes into a lockdown for 1 week as all non-essential companies ordered to work from home, #China gov criticizes Shanghai for not following zero-covid & other epidemic policies, outbreaks currently recorded in 19 admin units.
(163) pic.twitter.com/qMmPyuav0s— Moneyball (@DKurac) March 14, 2022
SOURCES: Australian financial Review
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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See the adjacent article about effectiveness of ivermectin prophylaxis. This was shown in India a year and a half ago. You could also use it for early treatment.
China is probably trying to get the world to copy their lockdowns again.
Omicron is a nasty contagious bug and it was soon clear that zero covid strategies wouldn't work anymore. Zero covid countries were supposedly just bargaining some time while some effective therapy or vaccine arrived and was distributed.
Or waiting for the population to gain herd immunity by exposure. Whatever it was, several countries are already there.
For China, this is compounded with the deliberate lack of foreign mRNA vaccine reinforcements, which are far more effective against Omicron. Not in preventing contagions, mind you, but good for not getting seriously ill and dying.
Now they have a big population still very susceptible to Omicron. The bargaining time's up and the deliberate lack of vaccine variety will come back to bite them.
I was somewhat concerned that the rest of the world had been so badly screwed up by Covid, that even if it was an accident, China might do it deliberately next time.
But maybe not, their own capacity to deal with epidemic diseases seems to be sub-par.