After a spike in coronavirus infections, more than 2,000 visitors were left stranded in a seaside city in China.
Authorities in Beihai ordered the weekend mass testing of the city’s 1.9 million citizens while locking down urban areas.
It comes as worries over China’s “zero-Covid” policy’s effects on the second-largest economy in the world increase.
According to data released last week, the nation’s economy contracted in the second quarter of this year as a result of COVID-19 limitations that affected businesses and consumers.
In the five days leading up to July 16th, Beihai, a well-liked summer vacation spot in southern Guangxi, China, registered more than 450 illnesses.
Even if the number of cases may appear modest by international standards, it is high by Chinese official criteria for the epidemic.
The local administration of Beihai said on Sunday that visitors who had not come into touch with someone who had the virus or who had not gone to a medium-risk or high-risk region would be permitted to depart provided they obtained a negative Covid-19 test.
Officials said at a press conference that the remainder must remain in the city and be confined.
In a comment that has earned more than 2,700 likes on the social media site Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, a visitor on vacation in Beihai expressed her dissatisfaction.
“My three-month confinement in Shanghai recently ended. Did I irritate anyone by coming to Beihai for a breath of fresh air?” She spoke.
Authorities in other parts of China are ramping up their efforts to curb the increase of Covid cases.
On Monday, Shanghai’s municipal administration announced it will force citizens in more than half of its 16 districts to be tested for the virus, after doing similar tests last week.
The significant commercial, industrial, and financial hub didn’t reopen until June following a two-month shutdown.
It is one of several major Chinese cities confronting fresh illness clusters.
According to a statement published on Monday by the Japanese financial behemoth Nomura, the Covid situation in China has “significantly worsened on a national basis” during the previous week.
The analysts Ting Lu, Jing Wang, and Harrington Zhang stated that “based on our own assessment, 41 cities are now adopting complete or partial lockdowns or some form of district-based control measures, which entail harsh restrictions restricting the mobility of local population.”
They said, “These 41 cities account for 22.8% of China’s GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and 18.7% of China’s population.”
Government data released on Friday revealed the nation’s economy shrank significantly in the second quarter of this year as a result of widespread coronavirus lockdowns that had a significant negative impact on both businesses and consumers.
The GDP decreased from the prior quarter in the three months ending in June by 2.6 percent.
Shanghai was among the major cities in China that had complete or partial lockdowns at this time as the nation continued to adhere to its zero-Covid policy.
One of the most crucial measures of how well or poorly an economy is performing is the GDP, or gross domestic product.
It serves as a gauge for all economic activity by businesses, governments, and people.