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BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Aug 8 (Reuters) – China’s tourism-dependent island province of Hainan closed more spaces on Monday, state media reported, as it battles its worst COVID-19 outbreak after seeing too few cases in the past two years to many others. portions of the country.
The South China Sea island, which recorded only two symptomatic local cases of COVID last year, reported more than 1400 locally transmitted infections this month, adding 982 symptomatic ones. While small by global standards, it is the province’s largest outbreak since the virus appeared. reported in the central city of Wuhan in China at the end of 2019.
The strong backlog comes amid renewed interest in tourism after China eased restrictions on domestic travel, explaining the shorter incubation era of the Omicron variant, making quarantine less difficult.
However, the restrictions imposed on Hainan, in line with China’s “dynamic COVID-zero” policy that aims to eliminate outbreaks as soon as possible, imply persistent uncertainty around travel. This may further undermine trust in the tourism and hospitality sectors, which are vulnerable to COVID restrictions.
The provincial capital of Haikou, with about 2. 9 million inhabitants, and two smaller cities, Ledong and Chengmai, locked up their citizens on Monday, according to state media.
At least 8 towns and villages, with a combined population of around 7 million, said their citizens deserve not to leave their apartments for mandatory reasons such as COVID testing, groceries or essential jobs. They also suspended public shipping services. .
The measurements will be in position for varying periods of time, with the shortest being scheduled for a few hours, according to state media.
Around 25,000 tourists were stranded in Sanya, the city hardest hit by the Hainan outbreak and the island’s main tourist hub, on Sunday. Although cities said tourists could leave after COVID testing, many were frustrated with the disruption.
In Qionghai City, which will remain closed for 3 days, all flights to Qionghai Boao Airport scheduled for Monday were cancelled for “reasons of public protection”.
FALLING STOCKS
Chinese stocks in tourism, transportation and customer staples fell Monday morning, and China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp fell about 5% after Sanya opened the last duty-free malls on Aug. 5.
Blockades in several cities on the tropical island dashed hopes of an immediate rebound in the country’s long-suffering aviation sector, which had relied on a summer boom to help reduce record losses.
Hainan Airlines fell 1. 5% on Monday morning, reaching its lowest point since February last year, when the airline was in the midst of a restructuring to deal with a multi-year liquidity crisis.
The airline said in July that its loss in the first half is expected to be 11. 95 to 12. 96 billion yuan (1. 77 billion to 1. 92 billion U. S. dollars), more than the previous year’s loss of 880. 9 million yuan.
Nationwide, China reported 807 COVID-transmitted infections as of Aug. 7, adding 324 symptomatic and 483 asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.
There were no new deaths, keeping the number of deaths in the country unchanged at 5,226.
As of Sunday, mainland China had shown 231,266 cases with symptoms, adding patients and symptomatic foreign travelers.
The Chinese capital, Beijing, reported two new symptomatic local cases on Aug. 7, while Shanghai and the Shenzhen Southern Technology Center reported no new local cases.
($1 = 6. 7633 yuan) (Reporting via Roxanne Liu, Stella Qiu, Jason Xue, Ryan Woo and Shanghai Newsroom; editing via Himani Sarkar and Gerry Doyle)