China's Omicron-hit Tianjin launches new round of tests
BEIJING: The Chinese city of Tianjin started a new round of
testing of its 14 million residents on Wednesday (Jan 12) to block the Omicron
variant, as financial analysts warned of the growing economic costs on China of
curbs to extinguish clusters of infections.
China, which has stuck to what is effectively a
"zero-COVID" policy, is scrambling to prevent the spread of the
highly infectious Omicron variant ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday later
this month and as Beijing prepares to stage the Winter Olympics from Feb 4.
Japanese automaker Toyota said operations at its
joint-venture factory in Tianjin had been halted since Monday due to the impact
of mandatory coronavirus testing of Tianjin residents on its suppliers.
"We plan to resume operations as soon as the
government's instructions and the safety and security of the local community
and suppliers are confirmed and assured," Toyota said in a statement to
Reuters.
Tianjin, about 100 km southeast of Beijing, reported 33
domestically transmitted coronavirus infections with confirmed symptoms for
Tuesday, up from 10 the day before, national data showed.
The city ordered a half-day off for employees at companies
and other institutions on Wednesday and required them to keep activities
"relatively static" to comply with the city's second round of mass
testing, the local government said in a statement.
In the central province of Henan, the city of Anyang, where
Omicron has also been detected in the community, reported 65 local symptomatic
cases on Tuesday, a surge from just two a day earlier.
A vice premier, Sun Chunlan, visited Henan and said Omicron
presented a challenge to the city's virus control efforts.
Officials should "further increase the efficiency of
testing and epidemiological investigation and adopt strict community-level
control measures", the official Xinhua news agency quoted her as saying in
a report late on Tuesday.
Case numbers in Tianjin and Anyang are tiny compared with
outbreaks in many other countries, with the total number of Omicron infections
unclear.
Tianjin has made it harder for people to leave town, while
Anyang, has ordered residents to remain indoors during mass testing, unless for
essential jobs or for their tests.
China is likely to see ramped-up virus restrictions to
contain Omicron, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note, revising down their
2022 growth forecast to 4.3 percent from 4.8 percent previously, citing
economic costs from the potentially intensified measures.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley also said they saw downside risk
to their first-quarter growth forecast this year, as Omicron could "imply
more costs than benefits under China's COVID-zero strategy".
Including infections in Tianjin and Anyang, mainland China reported
a total of 166 local symptomatic cases for Tuesday, more than 110 a day
earlier.
There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4,636.
As of Jan 11, mainland China had 104,189 confirmed symptomatic cases, including
both local ones and those arriving from overseas.
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