According to official information, an 87-year-old man from Beijing is the first person in the People’s Republic to die in connection with the corona virus since May. For the Chinese, the news means tough restrictions again.
China has reported the first corona death in over half a year. The 87-year-old man from Beijing is the first to die after contracting the virus since late May, according to the Health Commission. At that time, there was a major outbreak in Shanghai.
Due to a strict zero-corona policy, there are significantly fewer infections and deaths related to corona infections in China than in other countries. However, the population has to accept tough measures and lockdowns again and again, which also weigh heavily on the economy. In the past few weeks, the corona numbers have risen steadily. On Sunday, China reported 24,435 new Covid-19 infections nationwide. While that’s a slight drop, the number is still close to its April peak, when Shanghai, the country’s largest city, was put into a two-month lockdown.
The Chinese authorities reacted to the death with stricter conditions in the capital. In Beijing, many shops and restaurants remained closed over the weekend. The schools announced that classes would be canceled for the new week. The parents of the international schools in the district were informed that classes in the new week would be online only: “As Covid-19 has spread to multiple locations and with complex chains of transmission, schools in Chaoyang District will switch to online classes,” it said in one such statement. Barbers in neighboring Dongcheng District were also ordered to close.
Many Beijingers tried desperately to stock up on groceries. Some delivery services have been delayed after residents of Chaoyang District – home to nearly 3.5 million people and home to embassies and office towers – were told to stay indoors over the weekend. Supermarkets, pharmacies and markets were open. However, a negative PCR test from the past 24 hours often had to be proven at the entrance – not from the past 48 hours as usual. “Society should be shut down,” it said in a statement.
The authorities are fighting corona outbreaks across the country, including in the economically important regions of Guangzhou and Chongqing. They had recently announced slight easing of the tough corona rules that put a strain on people and the economy. China’s government is targeting gross domestic product growth of around 5.5 percent this year. Last year, an increase of 8.1 percent was achieved, as the world export champion benefited from the recovery of the global economy from the Corona crisis.
But although the government has been supporting the economy with numerous measures since the end of May, the rigid zero-Covid policy and the global economic slump have recently slowed down world trading power. In October, for the first time in almost two and a half years, both exports and imports fell – another sign that the once booming economy is getting into trouble.