The country has recorded more than 5,000 new cases in 24 hours, a number that has more than doubled in one day.
Le Monde with AFP
China reported on Tuesday, March 15, of 5,280 cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the highest count since the very first epidemic wave at the beginning of 2020. This assessment represents more than the Double digit announced the day before.
China, where the coronavirus was detected for the first time at the end of 2019, had reached very largely the epidemic by resorting to strict containment measures, but the Omicron strain gave rise in recent months to many Fireplaces throughout the country.
If the Chinese numbers remain modest compared to recorded balance sheets elsewhere in the world, they are high for the country. He officially counted that about 120,000 CVIV-19 patients (not counting asymptomatic persons) in all and after the beginning of the epidemic, as well as 4,636 dead. The last death due to the coronavirus goes back, according to the authorities, at the beginning of 2021.
For a few days, many cities, even entire regions, are placed in quarantine. According to a count of the France-Press agency (AFP), nearly 30 million inhabitants are now confined to home, especially in the Technological Metropolis of Shenzhen (South), at the gates of Hongkong.
An aloud record by the province of Jilin
These measures have resulted in the closure of many factories, including those of the Taiwanese giant Foxconn, the main supplier of Apple, in the megacity of 17 million. These economic disturbances, likely to affect global supply chains, have dropped on Monday by nearly 5% the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which has plunged more than 3% on Tuesday at the opening. The technological values are the most penalized.
“So far, the Shenzhen and Shanghai ports continue to operate normally. But a quarantine of these ports will exacerbate global supply problems, in addition to disturbances already caused by the Russia-Ukraine war”, Observe the Tommy Wu economist, Oxford Economics Cabinet.
But the epidemic revival in the first place at the other end of the vast country: Tuesday’s figures have been largely weighted by the assessment of the Jilin Province (Northeast), a border of North Korea, a country that escaped COVID according to its authorities. More than 3,000 contaminations have been recorded in the Jilin alone in the last 24 hours.
Shanghai, the largest city in the country, has reported only nine new cases on Tuesday, but the authorities have confined many neighborhoods and the inhabitants fear widespread quarantine. Many interior flights were canceled Tuesday morning at Shanghai airport, as well as Beijing, the capital that has only announced six new cases.