Covid In China: Beijing Imposes Restrictions While Shanghai Allows 6 Districts To Relax Rules; Omicron-specific Vaccine Trials Begin And More

Covid continues to haunt Chinese cities as capital Beijing imposed a new set of restrictions due to rising Covid cases. Authorities have imposed restrictions during the Labour Day holiday-week to avoid a rise in the number of cases. Beijing has closed down gyms and cinemas and banned dining-in at restaurants until Wednesday to lower the chances of another fresh outbreak. Authorities have allowed parks and open entertainment venues will operate at 50% capacity.

Beijing residents will now have to provide negative nucleic acid test results within 48 hours in order to enter any public venue during the five-day Labour Day holiday.

Chinese president Xi Jinping also remains under pressure due to the recent Covid surge fuelled by the Omicron variant. Economic activities remain largely halted  in major financial hub Shanghai, auto manufacturing centre Changchun and elsewhere and have dented China’s growth prospects, according to a report by Bloomberg, which cited the first official data for the month of April.

Xi, however, promised that Beijing will meet its economic targets while sticking to the dynamic zero-Covid policy. Economists disagree and say that both cannot happen. The Chinese president also said that ‘healthy development of private capital should be encouraged’, according to Bloomberg, thus softening his stance on private sector companies.

Meanwhile in Shanghai, authorities gave all clear to six districts citing that they met the criteria for zero community spread of Covid-19 and can loosen restrictions. In China the criteria of zero community spread of Covid-19 means that there have been no local Covid infections for three days in a row and if the number of new daily cases are less than 0.001% of the area’s population for the same time period.

China Administers First Omicron-Specific Inactivated Vaccine

State-run news agency Global Times said that doctors have administered the first dose of Covid-19 inactivated vaccine against the Omicron variant during a clinical trial  in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The vaccine was developed by China’s Sinopharm and is the first-ever inactivated vaccine against Omicron.

Scientists from Sinopharm’s subsidiary, China National Biotec Group (CNBG), last month said that the vaccine triggers high levels of neutralising antibodies specifically against the Omicron variant. They further told the Global Times that the vaccine increases protection against other strains by two to three times. The CNBG officials said that the trials could take an estimated three to four months.

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