COVID surge in Beijing compounds challenge for China

While the pandemic situation in China's financial hub Shanghai is yet to stabilize, coronavirus has also spread to Beijing, posing a major challenge for the Chinese government.

After a few cases surfaced in a routine test at a school, mass testing has been started in the city's most populous Chaoyang district where all 3.5 million residents would be tested thrice this week.

Following the closure of non-essential activities and businesses in Beijing, panic buying has started. The handling of the coronavirus situation in Beijing would be a major challenge to President Xi Jinping in the backdrop of continued insistence on a zero covid policy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) despite the large scale disruption of normal life and economic activities across China.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread in more and more cities in China, questions are mounting over the country's zero covid policy.

The country's much-publicized "zero-covid" strategy that the government credited for bringing the country out of the pandemic till recently is falling apart as the rapidly mounting cases are again forcing mass lockdowns like those seen in 2020.

Shanghai, facing the worst COVID-19 outbreak, has been desperately seeking medical care and basic supplies like food. Moreover, horrifying videos have emerged showing Shanghai residents screaming from their windows over strict COVID lockdown measures that prevent them from leaving home even for food.

Also, Beijing is on high COVID-19 alert after the city recorded 21 new community cases in the last 24 hours on Sunday. Later, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports also ordered to suspend all sports events, and extracurricular sports training activities from Tuesday to Saturday amid a surge in cases.

Meanwhile, China reported 1,818 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 48 deaths in the past 24 hours, said the National Health Commission on Wednesday.

( With inputs from ANI )

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