China: "Heaviest onslaught" since the beginning of the pandemic - again a city of millions in lockdown

Created: 03/11/2022Updated: 03/11/2022 11:42 am

By: Sven Hauberg

Mass test in Shanghai: The corona numbers in China have recently increased significantly.

© AP/dpa

China has reported more than 1,000 new infections for the first time in over two years.

The corona situation in Hong Kong is even more dramatic.

Munich/Beijing – In China, more people have been infected with the corona virus than in more than two years.

As the National Health Commission announced on Friday (March 11), 1,100 new local infections were reported nationwide the previous day, plus 269 infections imported from abroad.

China reports both values ​​separately.

The eastern provinces of Shandong and the northeastern provinces of Jilin are particularly affected.

Jilin's provincial capital, Changchun, was promptly put into lockdown.

According to the local authorities, all around nine million residents of the city are to be tested for the virus.

Also, only one person per household is allowed to leave the apartment every two days to go shopping.

It is the largest city

According to state media, unspecified Chinese health experts spoke of the "heaviest onslaught" since the beginning of the pandemic.

The number of new local infections has exceeded the one thousand mark for the first time since the corona outbreak in the city of Wuhan.

The alarm bells are therefore ringing in China: the higher the number of cases, the more difficult it is to maintain the country's strict zero-Covid policy.

China always responds to individual local outbreaks with tough lockdowns and mass tests.

China: Zero Covid strategy and hard lockdowns with increasing case numbers

The number of cases has been rising steadily for days.

On Thursday, the National Health Commission reported 837 local infections and 277 imported cases.

Wednesday there were 555 local 181 and imported new infections.

Most of the new infections in the last few days are asymptomatic, it said.

“The omicron variant spreads faster and causes less severe disease.

This is one of the reasons why there have been so many asymptomatic cases lately," state media quoted Yang Zhanqiu, a professor at Wuhan University's Department of Pathogen Biology, as saying on Friday.

Premier Li Keqiang stressed on Friday at a press conference concluding the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress that they want to stick to the zero-Covid strategy.

"The virus is still changing and we are still learning," Li said, while calling for improvements in vaccines and medicines against the virus.

The vaccines used in China are considered to be only slightly effective against the omicron variant.

Hong Kong: Hundreds of thousands of new infections since the beginning of the year

Hong Kong, a city with over a million inhabitants, has been reporting significantly higher numbers than mainland China for weeks.

As the administration of the former British crown colony announced on Thursday, more than 31,000 new infections were registered within 24 hours.

In addition, Hong Kong has one of the highest corona death rates in the world.

According to official information, the vaccination rate among Hong Kongers between the ages of 70 and 79 is less than 60 percent, and among people over the age of 80 only 32 percent have received two doses of corona vaccine.

According to official figures, the majority of those who died were not vaccinated.

Prime Minister Carrie Lam, who is loyal to Beijing, rejected reports that the city administration wanted to make it compulsory to test all residents of Hong Kong for the corona virus on Wednesday.

"What we're doing now is planning and preparing," Lam said at a news conference.

Mandatory corona tests for the entire population are “currently not a priority”.

Premier Li now stressed that Hong Kong must "take primary responsibility for fighting the epidemic, and the central government will fully support the fight against the epidemic."

In the first two years, Hong Kong was able to largely protect itself from the corona pandemic with strict measures.

The metropolis has been in its worst corona wave for a few weeks.

From the beginning of the pandemic to the end of 2021, only around 12,000 people in Hong Kong were infected with the corona virus. In the current omicron wave, more than half a million infections have been detected since the beginning of the year.