More than two hundred million people face a new lockdown in China as the Communist Party implements draconian new restrictions despite some cases.
Some 28 cities, in addition to Wuhan, the 0th floor of the virus, are now a wave of new crippling measures.
Data published in The Sun Online by economic research firm Nomura shows that another 208 million people are currently living under some form of lockdown in China.
Two highly contagious subvariants of Omicron, BF. 7 and BA. 5. 1. 7, are ideal for the recent increase in cases.
Chinese officials have described the variants as “highly contagious” because they can also infect others who were previously immune.
“According to government statistics and our survey, 28 cities are lately implementing other degrees of lockdown or some kind of district-based measure,” Nomura said.
Nomura added that the total number of other people under restrictions had dropped from last week’s figures to 225 million.
But the strictest of lockdowns has increased and now affects 8. 5% of China’s GDP.
The seven-day moving average of higher instances from 1333 to 820.
Beijing officials, however, felt that the low workload in a country of 1. 4 billion people was enough to plunge millions into lockdown.
More than 3 times the population of the entire UK lately lives restrictions in China.
Wuhan joined the other 27 cities after recording just 240 cases in the past two weeks.
The city, the site of the world’s first Covid outbreak, sounded the alarm at the World Health Organization on December 31, 2019.
Then the outbreak morphed into a global pandemic that has killed more than 6. 5 million people and inflamed 635 million.
Beijing is taking a zero tolerance for the virus, enforcing the new regulations after just 20 to 25 new infections per day this week.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who appointed “Emperor for life” this week, continues to implement what has been called “the world’s strictest lockdown. “
Police officers dressed in hazmat suits and wielding device guns brutally enforced the rules.
Quarantine camps, food shortages, seizure of people’s homes, tags on Covid patients, and drones tracking the streets have all been noticed across China.
And yet, the number of cases in China is reported to have been relatively low during the pandemic.
The maximum they have suffered on February 12, 2020, with 14,108 new instances, and the maximum they faced this year 5659 on April 29.
Meanwhile, Britain recorded an absolute number of cases of 275,647 on January 5, 2022, which is higher than what China claims is its absolute number of cases over the past 1031 days of 258,398.
China’s draconian reaction to the virus has raised the specter of a return to the future for higher cases around the world as we approach the winter months.
But the West has implemented far more effective vaccination programs, making countries more equipped to deal with any spikes in infections.
China appears to be pursuing a national policy of self-isolation, as the Communist Party has made Covid Zero its flagship plan.
Xi doubled down on his policy in a recent speech and vowed that all measures should be maintained for the foreseeable future.
He said his plans to save people’s lives.
China has not recorded a single death from covid since May, and from April 2020 to April 2022, it recorded six deaths.
Is this a sign of the good fortune of Xi’s policies or a sign of the Chinese state’s overreaction?
Wuhan has been the guinea pig, while China has pioneered the concept of “lockdowns” — the 76-day lockdown that followed the trend in cities from London to New York to Melbourne.
Xi’s refusal to abandon his plan has been blamed for deep economic malaise and stoking the few open unrest in China.
Covid Zero has been described in some reports as a “trap of its making” for the Communist Party.
University of Hong Kong virologist Jin Dongyan told The Washington Post: “If they open now, there will be a primary outbreak.
“However, even if they don’t open, sooner or later a primary outbreak will occur somewhere. “
The scientists added that the technique is “not sustainable” and that “someone made the judgment. “
“They have misjudged the scenario in the world and cannot leave their own zone of convenience,” he said.
It has been reported that the most recent cases of Covid in Wuhan may have been linked to the sale of meat.
And that fits with the theory that it would possibly have first emerged from the now-notorious Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan.
The first cases of the virus headed to the rainy market in central Wuhan, which was full of live animals for sale.
It is recommended that the virus has jumped from one species to another before mutating to infect humans.
However, some have cast serious doubt on this theory, pointing the finger at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
WIV harbored bat-based coronaviruses, and it was reported that the infection would likely have escaped or been carried out through a poor health worker.
China has angrily denied those allegations, and the true origins of the virus remain unknown.
“I don’t know what to do. If we can still live like this, I guess that’s what we’ll do,” a Wuhan resident told Reuters.
“When we see those reports about Covid, we feel a little numb now. We feel numb from all this.
“We are getting more and more numb. “
Wuhan isn’t the only new lockdown in China: Guangzhou was also cordoned off.
People have been ordered to stay home in areas that are considered high risk of a Covid resurgence.
Lily Li, 28, a resident of Guangzhou, said: “Many of my friends and colleagues have been cooped up at home.
“The scenario is still unstable. Many stalls are closed. Classes have ceased and entertainment venues have also been suspended.
Meanwhile, in Xining, food shortages and surgesmen have been reported.
Other recent Covid outbreaks in China have made the cities of Datong and Xi’an subject to new measures.
The charm of Beijing Universal Studios Resort was shut down due to a single woman’s Covid case, and there were viral cases at a factory in Zhengzhou that makes iPhones.
“Once there’s a case somewhere and you’re a close contact, you have to be quarantined,” said Wen Bihan, 26, a Beijing resident.
With a total of 28 cities, some lockdown measure, this affects a $3. 5 trillion guilty region, or 25% of China’s GDP.
This fuels fears that Xi’s ruthless policies opposed to Covid Zero could be his nation’s fate.
China has recorded a total of 258,000 covid cases and just over 5,000 deaths, a small number for other countries.
There has been wonderful skepticism about China’s numbers, with many reports suggesting that the Communist Party has concealed the true extent of the nation’s epidemic.
This story is published through The Sun and has been reprinted with permission.
Originally, when China plunges 210 million into lockdown as two ‘highly contagious’ Covid variants emerge