China decided to prioritize the economy and the technological metropolis of Shenzhen (south) on Friday partially lifted the confinement decreed by a covid-19 outbreak, especially in its port, one of the largest in the world and vital for trade.
The decision of the city of 17.5 million inhabitants, located at the gates of Hong Kong, comes after President Xi Jinping called on the eve to “minimize” the impact of prevention measures on the Chinese economy.
China is experiencing its worst coronavirus outbreak in almost two years, with several thousand new positive cases daily in recent days, spread across about twenty provinces, that is, two-thirds of the country.
In response, the authorities have confined several tens of millions of people in the country of 1.4 billion inhabitants.
The Ministry of Health reported 4,365 infections on Friday the previous day, of which 105 were in Shenzhen.
The southern city, which brings together thousands of factories of big names in technology, was placed on Sunday in total confinement after the detection of cases of covid-19, linked to the epidemic that ravages Hong Kong.
Public transport can now resume, as well as administrations and economic activity in five districts of the city, the city council announced Thursday night.
Among the affected districts is that of Yantian, where one of the largest ports in the world is located, with 10.5% of the containers used by Chinese foreign trade.
- In danger -
The removal of restrictions illustrates the authorities' concern for economic activity after two years of “zero covid” strategy, which consists of doing everything possible (lockdowns, quarantines, contact tracing, border filtering) to prevent the emergence of new cases.
Xi Jinping ordered Thursday night the continuation of this policy to “immediately stop the spread of infections.” But he also called for “minimizing the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development,” while Beijing announced for this year its lowest growth target in 30 years (“about 5.5% “).
One of the main suppliers of US computer giant Apple, the Taiwanese company Foxconn, had already indicated on Wednesday that it had resumed part of its production in Shenzhen.
According to official figures, the “zero covid” strategy allowed in the last two years to limit the number of patients to about 125,000, 5,000 of whom died.
Since spring 2020, life is almost normal in the country, but the outbreak of the omicron variant is changing things.
Across the border with Shenzhen, the semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong, also a supporter of the “zero covid” policy, has one of the highest omicron mortality rates in the world, especially among unvaccinated older people.
The Chinese Ministry of Health reported on Friday that only 51% of people over 80 years of age in mainland China had received at least two doses.
“The Hong Kong epidemic has given us a particularly enlightening lesson,” Wang Hesheng, Deputy Minister of Health, told a press conference on Friday.
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