Ahead of the 20th Communist Party Congress, authorities across China are doubling down on "Zero-COVID" efforts, imposing measures including pre-emptive lockdowns and blanket bans to stop coronavirus flare-ups.
The Congress, held every five years, gets underway in Beijing next Sunday, and the tighter COVID-19 controls for the event prompted many people to abandon travel plans for the week-long National Day break. At the same time, the people were advised to stay put during the holidays.
Notably, new Omicron sub-variants BF.7 and BA.5.1.7 have been detected in China.
BF.7 subvariant spread to more Chinese provinces on Monday. The highly infectious virus was first detected in northwest China. On the other hand, the subvariant BA.5.1.7 was detected in the Chinese mainland for the first time, said Li Shujian, deputy director of the local disease prevention and control centre, reported Global Times.
In recent weeks, China has more than doubled its daily average of new infections, to nearly 2,000 officially reported on Friday, which is still extremely low by global standards. The authorities are still strict about the epidemic.
According to The New York Times, Xi's linking his adherence to the zero policy with his party loyalty had become a serious political issue. It makes local officials very anxious because they all want to be favoured by Xi Jinping.
To ensure that the 20th National Congress scheduled to be held on October 16 will not be disturbed, the CCP's "clearing" policy has caused considerable economic and societal costs. The lives of millions of people have been disrupted, and people have complained.
Recently, Yongji City, hosted by Yuncheng in Shanxi Province, has no epidemic situation, but the "city closure" measures are still being implemented. The Secretary of Hejin City expressed his position to his superiors, guarding Hejin and welcoming the 20th National Congress of the Party. Nucleic acid testing of all staff in Yuncheng began on October 7 for three consecutive days.
In Inner Mongolia, where the number of confirmed cases reported on Friday had soared to nearly 700, officials in the district were instructed to "kill chickens with a knife". "Let's use speed to prevent proliferation and spillover, wildly not to spill over to Beijing."
The Xinjiang region, with a population of 22 million, has adopted comprehensive lockdown measures. Ma Xingrui, secretary of the district party committee, said that all localities and departments should ensure the convening of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party as the most important "political task" and tighten the string of epidemic prevention and control.
While, Voice of America (VOA) said that China's current zero-resistance policy to fight the epidemic had closed almost all borders of population movement, and mega-cities have fallen into unpredictable lockdowns one by one, stifling the vitality of China, the world's second-largest economy, causing widespread anger and despair.
Separately, a key private survey showed Saturday that China's massive services activity contracted in September for the first time in five months. The Caixin services Purchasing Managers Index, which focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises in China's service industry, dropped to 49.3 last month from 55 in August, according to a statement by S&P Global Ratings. It was the first drop in the index since May.
A reading below 50 indicates contraction. Efforts to curb the spread of Covid across China led to a renewed fall in service sector activity, which disrupted business operations and restricted travel, the statement said.
In particular, employment continued to shrink. The gauge for employment stayed in contraction territory for the ninth consecutive month and hit its lowest point since May, reported CNN.
( With inputs from ANI )
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