Chinese authorities have locked down manufacturing hubs and schools in Shanghai as the country sees a drastic and sustained increase in cases due to the omicron variant.
China has maintained a zero-COVID-19 strategy, which consists of imposing strict mitigation measures as soon as a spike is detected rather than following the lead of many Western countries, such as the United States and United Kingdom, that have relied on vaccinations and masking to address spikes while maintaining semi-normalcy.
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Authorities have locked down manufacturing powerhouse Shenzhen, telling businesses such as Apple material supplier Foxconn and Huawei that are not involved in essential public services to shut down. They sealed off the city of more than 17 million, as well as the entire northeastern province of Jilin, home to 24 million people. The order to seal the people of Jilin inside the province’s borders marks the first provincewide shutdown in China since January 2020, when Hubei province was locked down.
In Shanghai, the country’s business capital, schools have been ordered to shift entirely to virtual learning, and authorities have shut down intercity buses and imposed a requirement that all new arrivals show proof of a negative test. Individual neighborhoods have also been placed under lockdown, affecting over 2.5 million people.
Despite the deleterious effects that mass lockdowns have on the economic health of entire countries, Chinese officials have not given any indication that they will abandon the zero-tolerance pandemic strategy. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan said in a government meeting over the weekend that the country should maintain its “dynamic” strategy.
“All prevention and control measures should be strictly implemented in schools, elderly nursing homes, factories, enterprises and other key locations to prevent cluster resurgence,” she said.
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China’s National Health Commission reported 1,437 new cases on Sunday, the sharpest daily spike in cases yet. The omicron variant is spreading incredibly fast across the Chinese mainland. Last Thursday, government officials reported 555 new cases, up from 337 new cases on March 8.
Many new cases reported in China recently have been asymptomatic, a benefit of the country’s high vaccination coverage. At least 88% of people living in mainland China have been fully vaccinated. The omicron wave there has put the country’s vaccines to the test. The CoronaVac vaccine from Beijing-based Sinovac and the vaccine from Sinopharm were markedly less effective against the omicron variant than previous variants such as delta and the original Wuhan strain.
A booster of the Sinopharm vaccine showed at least a tenfold reduction in efficacy against omicron compared with the original strain. A team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong, meanwhile, reported in December that a third dose of the CoronaVac in those who completed the two-dose regimen prompted an inadequate immune response that kept people vulnerable to infection.
