The Chinese Ministry of Health announces 24,000 cases in one day in the country, which continues the “zero covid” policy, with systematic tests and confinement.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
China announced its COVID-19 first death on Sunday, November 20, since May. He is an 87 -year -old man, who died in Beijing, where the increase in the number of cases gradually leads to closings of establishments and businesses.
The Asian giant is the last great global economy to pursue a strict health policy called “zero covid”, which consists in imposing confinements from the appearance of cases, compulsory quarantines on positive tested and almost daily PCR tests To identify the transmission chains.
The Ministry of Health announced more than 24,000 new positive cases in twenty-four hours in the country on Sunday, including the vast asymptomatic majority. The large manufacturing province of Guangdong (South), where the metropolises of Canton and Shenzhen are located, is by far the most affected.
closure of stores and telework
In the capital, Beijing, 621 new cases have been identified. The man who died in Beijing had a Benin covid, but his situation worsened following a bacterial infection, according to CCTV public television. This is officially the first death since the end of May.
Large shopping centers announced their closure on Sunday. Others have simply reduced their opening hours or prohibits table services in their restaurants. Several office buildings in the Chaoyang district, headquarters of the business district and embassies, have asked companies to go to telework. Parks, sports halls and gymnasiums have also closed. The authorities had called on Saturday to restrict “non -imperative” trips between the various Beijing districts, in order to avoid the spread of the virus.
weariness and contestation of health measures
Residents of Beijing are confined to their homes and others have been placed in quarantine in specific centers. But the authorities seem not to want to impose for the moment too strong restrictions on a population which expresses an immense weariness of the anti-COVVID measures.
On the Chinese social network Weibo, similar to Twitter, comments under the articles concerning the epidemic in Beijing were filtered, noted the agency France-Presse (AFP), probably in order to avoid too strong contestation in line against health measures.
China announced on November 11 a relaxation of its “zero covid” health policy, with, in particular, the reduction of quarantines, in particular for international arrivals. However, a return to normal remains a distant perspective, because confinements, quarantines and screenings continue to be imposed on a large scale. The metropolis of canton launched, for example, a general screening in the Haizhu central district on Sunday, where around 1.8 million people live.