Using snap lockdowns, long quarantines and mass testing, China is the last major economy still pursuing the goal of eliminating outbreaks, even as the strategy takes a heavy toll on the economy.China reported 450 local infections on Saturday, up from 432 a day earlier. Most cases were asymptomatic.The rising wave of cases led to fresh restrictions this week in some parts of the country.Lanzhou, the capital of northwestern Gansu province, ordered its 4.4 million residents to stay home starting Wednesday, and a county in Anhui province went into lockdown from Friday.Beihai in the southern Guangxi region on Saturday also announced lockdowns in parts of two districts that are home to more than 800,000 people.“Currently, the epidemic prevention and control situation in Beihai city is severe and complicated, and the risk of hidden transmission in the community is relatively high,” said a government notice announcing the restrictions.Earlier in the week, the steelmaking hub of Wugang in central Henan province announced a three-day lockdown over a single Covid case.The fast-spreading Omicron variant of the virus has been a major challenge for Chinese authorities, as they try to limit the economic damage caused by Covid restrictions.China logged its slowest second-quarter growth rate since the initial Covid outbreak, with GDP expanding just 0.4 percent on-year.MACAU EXTENDS SHUTDOWN, INCLUDING CASINOSMacau is set to begin another working week of partial lockdown, after the city extended the closure of its casinos and non-essential businesses to try and eradicate its worst coronavirus outbreak yet.Authorities had announced a week of “static management” starting June 11 after recording more than 1,500 infections in the previous three weeks despite multiple rounds of compulsory mass testing of the city’s population.The restrictions had been due to lift on Monday, but cases have continued to climb, with the Macau government saying Sunday there had been 1,733 cases recorded since the start of the outbreak.Daily case numbers are comparatively small by global standards, but authorities have moved quickly to stamp out transmission as they adhere to mainland China’s strict zero-Covid policy.On Saturday the government announced that the “static management” period would be extended through Friday.All residents have to stay home except to go shopping for daily necessities and to get tested for the virus, with rule-breakers facing up to two years in jail.Some public services and businesses such as supermarkets and pharmacies are allowed to stay open, but casinos — which in normal times account for around 80 percent of government revenue — need to keep their doors closed.Macau hosts a casino industry bigger than that of Las Vegas, generating more than half the city’s gross domestic product and employing nearly one-fifth of the population.The only city in China where casino gambling is permitted, Macau has seen its vital tourism revenues wiped out by some of the world’s harshest measures to tackle the virus — including tough border controls, weeks-long quarantines and targeted lockdowns.Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign has also seen increased scrutiny of big-spending gamblers and corrupt officials who might travel to Macau to launder money.Macau residents may face further economic woes after city officials declared that employers are not obligated to pay workers during the Covid-related shutdown.DRAMATIC SPIKE IN ZOONOTIC DISEASESAfrica faces a growing threat from zoonotic diseases such as monkeypox, the WHO has said, with the continent recording a 63-percent rise in such outbreaks over the past decade.A World Health Organisation (WHO) analysis found 1,843 “public health events”, such as disease outbreaks, in Africa between 2001 and 2022.Thirty percent of those events were outbreaks of diseases spread to humans by animals, which are known as zoonotic diseases.Ebola is included among these diseases, for example, as well as dengue fever, anthrax, plague and monkeypox.Africa has seen a 63-percent rise in zoonotic disease outbreaks over the past decade in comparison to the 2001-2011 period, the WHO said in a statement.WHO’s Africa director Matshidiso Moeti was quoted in the statement as saying that poor transport infrastructure had once limited mass zoonotic infections on the continent.But Africa could become a “hotspot for emerging infectious diseases,” she warned, as improved transport links raise the threat of zoonotic pathogens travelling to cities.Moeti urged researchers with different specialities to collaborate closely to stem zoonotic diseases. “Only when we break down the walls between disciplines can we tackle all aspects of the response,” she said.Scientists have frequently sounded the alarm about the risk from animal-born diseases, especially as growing human populations come into closer contact with wild species through hunting or habitat loss.The period covered by the analysis included the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The novel coronavirus emerged in China from a suspected animal source before becoming classified as a human disease as it spread.
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