International

Hong Kong's health facilities have been overloaded by an "onslaught" of Covid-19 infections, its leader said, as a rise in Omicron cases threatens to bring down the city's "zero-Covid" policy. Authorities have adhered to mainland China's policy of stamping out the smallest outbreak with mass quarantine, widespread tracking, and prolonged social distancing measures since the start of the pandemic. But the extremely contagious Omicron variant breached the Chinese territory's defences in late December, piling up more than 8,000 infections in a few weeks with researchers warning that daily cases could exceed 25,000 by next month. While the infection rate remains low compared to major cities around the world, Hong Kong's policy of sending even asymptomatic cases to hospitals and quarantine facilities has filled up beds and amplified wait times. "The onslaught of the fifth wave of the epidemic has dealt a heavy blow to Hong Kong and overwhelmed the city's capacity of handling," leader Carrie Lam said in a statement issued Sunday night. The surge in cases has increased wait times "for admitting people who test positive to isolation facilities," she added. Surrounded by patients queuing for tests all of last week, the city's hospitals on Sunday told people who have "stable or have mild symptoms" to stay at home. But Lam said the government "will spare no effort to implement" the "zero Covid" strategy and that China will help the city to bolster testing and quarantine resources. Hong Kong has struggled to persuade its elderly population to get vaccinated with only around 50 percent of people over the age of 70 receiving a jab. The government has repeatedly said its "zero Covid" policy is to buy more time for them to get inoculated. Researchers warned Friday that by the end of March, the city could be racking up 28,000 daily infections. By the end of 2021, Hong Kong had only recorded a touch over 12,000 cases. Last week marked the city's first Covid-19 deaths in five months, with seven patients over 70 and one four-year-old boy falling to the virus.

A Winter Olympics overshadowed by rights concerns and taking place inside a strict Covid-secure bubble will officially begin in Beijing on Friday with an opening ceremony at the "Bird's Nest" stadium. The lattice-shaped arena took centre stage at the 2008 Games — seen as China's coming-out party to the world -- and will do so again as Beijing becomes the first city to host both a Summer and Winter Olympics. The opening ceremony starts at 8pm (1200 GMT) and will be attended by President Xi Jinping, under whose rule China has become more emboldened compared to 14 years ago. Xi, who will announce the Games are officially open, will be joined by leaders including Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin but the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia are among countries staging a diplomatic boycott over China's human rights record, particularly the fate of the Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. Other countries cited the coronavirus pandemic for not sending officials. With Moscow's relationship with the United States and Europe strained by its troop build-up on the Ukrainian border, Putin lavished praise on Russia's links to China. "They are of a truly unprecedented nature," he said after talks with Xi ahead of the ceremony. The nations whose leaders are staying away are still sending athletes to the Games, which are taking place inside a vast "closed loop" designed to thwart the virus. Some spectators will attend the opening ceremony but it is unclear how many and, like sports events at the Games, tickets were not sold to the general public because of the pandemic. The show is the mastermind of acclaimed Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, who was behind the 2008 extravaganza. Zhang has promised a "totally innovative" ceremony but conceded that the pandemic and freezing weather will limit its scale compared to the Summer Games, when 15,000 performers took part in a lavish gala featuring opera singers, acrobats and drummers. This time there will be about 3,000 performers and themes will include "environmental protection and low carbon emission", Zhang previously told state media. But China's assertion that these will be a "green Games" has been challenged by some experts because they are taking place in one of the driest places in the country and on almost entirely man-made snow.    - Watching from afar - Concerns about Covid loom large at these Games. The nearly 3,000 athletes and tens of thousands of support staff, volunteers and media have been cut off from Beijing's general population. China, where the virus emerged in late 2019, has pursued a no-nonsense zero-Covid policy nationwide and has adopted the same approach to the Games, with everyone inside the bubble tested  daily and required to wear a mask at all times. There have been more than 300 Covid cases in the bubble, among them an unknown number of athletes. Unlike the huge celebration that greeted the 2008 opening ceremony, locals this time will have to enjoy it on television. Speaking on the streets of the capital, Yin Rui, 31, said she was eager to watch on television. "Even if they are at home people will cheer for the Olympics," she told AFP, adding that "enthusiasm in everyone's hearts remain" for the Games. Away from the ceremony, the figure skating began with strongly fancied American Nathan Chen firing a warning to Japanese reigning champion Yuzuru Hanyu by producing a personal best score in the men's single short programme of the team competition. The two will vie for gold in the eagerly awaited men's single event beginning on Tuesday.

China's two most widely used Covid-19 vaccines, developed by Sinovac (SVA.O) and Sinopharm, were shown to be effective against the Delta variant of the coronavirus, a study based on real-world data in the country showed on Tuesday. The two vaccines were 52% effective against Delta infection and 60% for symptomatic disease, researchers wrote in a peer-reviewed paper. The study did not generate sufficient data to deliver effectiveness readings for the two vaccines separately or by age groups, researchers from a local disease control authority and two Chinese universities said in a paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The data is based on an analysis of more than 100 infections and more than 10,000 of their close contacts during a Delta outbreak in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong in May and June last year. They were also 78% effective for pneumonia, and 100% for severe or critical Covid-19. Among those fully vaccinated participants, only six individuals were aged 60 years or older, said the authors. "This does support the idea that the inactivated vaccines did have an impact on prevention of Covid-19 Delta infection," said Jerome Kim, director general of the nonprofit International Vaccine Institute, who did not participate in the study. Kim said the readings may be affected by potential differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated subjects and varied exposure risk to the virus because real-world data are generally not as clean as those from clinical trials. China has a small number of Covid infections compared with the rest of the world under its strategy to contain any transmission as soon as possible. The country does not provide total number of cases by variants. Apart from China, the two vaccines were also widely used in several countries including Indonesia, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.

The Covid-19 situation at the Beijing Winter Olympics is within the "expected controllable range", despite increasing positive cases being detected, a senior official at China's Olympics Pandemic Prevention and Control Office said on Tuesday. The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Organising Committee has reported 200 Covid cases since Jan. 23 among airport arrivals and those in the Games 'closed loop' bubble that separates all event personnel, including athletes, from the public. "As more people are entering China the imported Covid-19 cases are increasing," said Huang Chun, deputy director general of the committee's Pandemic Prevention and Control Office at a press briefing. Huang said rising cases were also a result of more effective and accurate Covid detection techniques by customs. Games organisers reported a total of 24 new Covid cases among Games-related personnel on January 31, of which 16 were athletes. Many athletes have been shut out from the Games, which will run Feb. 4-20, after testing positive on arrival at the airport. While many more are put in isolation after testing Covid but are asymptomatic. read more "Getting to the Olympics is never easy, and this time, as a new mom, it has been the most challenging," Elana Meyers Taylor, a three times Olympic medalist in bobsled, wrote on social media from her isolation hotel. China credits the strict Covid control measures, including frequent nucleic acid testings, for helping prevent clustered cases inside the closed loop. "(The Covid-19 situation) is generally within our expected controllable range. So the Games participants, including athletes, and Chinese public do not have to worry," said Huang. He said Olympics organisers were not considering any major changes to Covid control policies at the Games.

A Hong Kong cabinet minister resigned on Monday for attending a birthday party alongside dozens of officials and lawmakers just days after the city's government had called on people to avoid large gatherings to fight a coronavirus outbreak. "I have today tendered my resignation to the Chief Executive and intend to leave the post today," Home Affairs Minister Caspar Tsui said in a statement. "As one of the Principal Officials taking the lead in the anti-epidemic fight, I have not set the best example during the recent outbreak," he added. Tsui's resignation is a blow to the administration of Chief Executive Carrie Lam whose time in office has been marked by huge pro-democracy protests and a subsequent crackdown on dissent that has transformed Hong Kong. The January 3 birthday bash at a tapas restaurant for Witman Hung, a member of China's top lawmaking body, became a source of embarrassment for Lam as her government pursues a strict "zero-Covid" policy similar to Beijing's. The guest list emerged after health authorities traced an infected person to the party. Among the more than 200 people present were over a dozen top officials -- including the city's police, immigration and anti-corruption chiefs -- as well as 20 lawmakers. While the party was not illegal at the time under Hong Kong's strict social distancing rules, the city's health chief had warned people three days earlier to avoid large groups. Lam said the officials failed to set an example and ordered a probe. Tsui, 45, was a rising political star groomed by Hong Kong's largest pro-Beijing party, the DAB, which has further thrived under a new "patriots only" political system imposed by Beijing that has criminalised much of the traditional pro-democracy opposition. Hong Kong has been keeping the coronavirus at bay through some of the world's strictest Covid rules including long mandatory quarantines for all arrivals, restrictions on public gatherings and compulsory mask wearing in public apart from when eating. Photos from the party leaked to local media showed attendees singing karaoke and posing for group pictures without wearing masks. Since the tapas party, multiple other clusters of the Omicron and Delta coronavirus variants have been detected, leading to the reimposition of harsher restrictions including the closure of gyms and bars and forcing restaurants to only serve takeout in the evenings. Hong Kongers do not get to choose their leaders -- the source of years of pro-democracy protests -- and it is rare for cabinet members to resign. While campaigning for the top job, Lam famously said she would step down if she lost popular support. Her administration has had consistently low approval ratings, dipping as low as 18 percent during democracy protests in 2019. A new chief executive will be chosen by a small committee of Beijing loyalists in late March. Lam has not said whether she will seek a second term and Beijing has yet to give a nod to its preferred candidate.

* Russian biathlete withdraws after two positive tests * Top ski jumper Marita Kramer also positive * Australian curler out of isolation During the past four days China has detected some 119 cases of Covid-19 among people linked to the Beijing Winter Olympics, with authorities imposing a "closed loop" bubble to keep participants, staff and media separated from the public. The tally from the weekend showed 37 new cases on Sunday, and 34 on Saturday, with most testing positive after arrival at the airport, Games organisers said. On Monday, Russian biathlete Valeria Vasnetsova said her own Olympic ambitions were over after testing positive twice after arriving in Beijing for the global sporting showcase event. "Unfortunately my Olympic dream will remain just a dream," Vasnetsova wrote on social media. "Maybe one day I will find the strength to rise again but it will be a completely different story." Eight athletes or team officials were among 28 people who had tested positive on arrival at the airport on Sunday. Some 3,000 athletes, along with coaches, officials, referees, federation delegates and media are expected for the Games, due to run from Feb.4-21. The "closed loop" will allow them to move between accommodation and Olympic venues on official transport but they are not allowed out to move freely in public. In contrast to many countries seeking to live with Covid-19, China has isolated itself with a zero-tolerance policy, cancelling nearly all international flights. An opinion piece in the People’s Daily -- the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper -- praised the work done to prepare for the Games and battle the spread of the virus. "The epidemic and control measures of the Beijing Winter Olympics are the epitome of China’s successful experience in fighting the epidemic, and are also a focused demonstration of China’s spirit and China’s strength." Olympic athletes and others must fly directly into the city on charter flights. Everyone involved in the Games, including media and staff, is also being tested daily. Athletes, however, have also been testing positive prior to their arrival in Beijing, with the world's leading women's ski jumper, Marita Kramer of Austria, rescheduling her departure in an effort to get healthy in time for her competition. Kramer, who leads the women's overall World Cup standings ahead of Germany's Katharina Althaus and topped the podium in eight of her last 11 competitions, tested positive in Willingen, Germany, the last competition ahead of the Games. "Officials are at the moment working on a time plan in order to make it possible for the World Cup leader to take part in the Olympic Games in Beijing," the Austrian ski federation said. Kramer has no symptoms and no other team member tested positive. There was, however, good news for the Australian curling team after one of its athletes returned two negative tests following an initial positive in the Chinese capital on Sunday. Curler Tahli Gill and teammate Dean Hewitt had been in isolation for two days after Tahli tested positive at Beijing airport. The pair voiced relief that the ordeal was over. "We have treated this time as a rest day and a time to really focus on our Olympic goals," they said in a statement.

Beijing recorded its highest number of new Covid-19 cases for a year and a half on Sunday, as the Chinese capital gears up to host the Winter Olympics in five days. China will hold the Games in a strict "closed-loop" bubble as part of its zero-Covid strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy quarantines. The approach has helped the world's second-largest economy keep new infections far lower than many other countries, but it is battling local outbreaks in several cities as well as in the Olympic bubble. The upcoming Lunar New Year -- China's biggest national holiday -- presents a further challenge as millions of people return to their hometowns and mingle with family and friends. Beijing's tally of 20 new cases on Sunday was the city's highest since June 2020, according to the National Health Commission (NHC). City authorities have locked down some housing compounds, while officials in Fengtai district -- where most of Sunday's infections were detected -- have begun testing around 2 million people for the virus. The Olympics bubble separates everyone involved in the Games from the wider Chinese population to curb the risk of infections leaking out. The estimated 60,000 people inside the bubble are subject to daily testing. On Sunday, organisers reported 34 new cases related to the Games, bringing the total to more than 200 since the bubble was sealed on January 4. The new infections include 16 people who are either athletes or team officials, who tested positive either on arrival at the airport or inside the closed loop. The NHC said Sunday there were 54 new local cases nationwide, as the wealthy eastern city of Hangzhou and the city of Suifenhe in northeastern Heilongjiang province emerged as potential hotspots. Chinese authorities locked down an area neighbouring Beijing this week following a handful of reported cases, appearing not to publicly announce restrictions that have confined around 1.2 million people in Xiong'an New Area to their homes.

One of China’s longest coronavirus lockdowns ended yesterday with authorities announcing the lifting of most restrictions in the northern city of Xi’an. The historic city’s 13mn residents had been confined to their homes since December 22 after the discovery of a Covid-19 cluster that grew to more than 2,100 cases – China’s largest outbreak in months. With the Winter Olympics beginning next week, Chinese authorities have been scrambling to eradicate flare-ups in several major cities, most recently Beijing, where more than 40 cases have been recorded since mid-January. While China’s coronavirus caseload pales in comparison to global numbers, the country’s strict “zero-Covid” strategy means even the slightest hint of the virus is met with contact tracing, targeted lockdowns and long quarantines. Officials began removing restrictions in Xi’an last week after daily cases slowed to single digits. Residents with a clean bill of health are now permitted to leave the city, while public transport and economic activity have fully resumed now that Xi’an has been deemed a “low-risk” area, virus control authorities said in a statement Monday. Only one district remains under lockdown, the notice said, with restrictions to be lifted at a later date.  But travellers to Xi’an, home of the famed Terracotta Warriors, still need to provide a negative test result, while those from virus-affected areas of China are barred entry. Xi’an authorities came under fire for their handling of the prolonged lockdown, which saw food supply issues and medical tragedies stemming from patients being denied hospital access. In Beijing, authorities are ramping up already-strict virus controls after a recent spike in cases, which coincides with the traditional nationwide travel rush before the Lunar New Year.  People in the capital who buy over-the-counter fever medication are now required to undergo virus testing, while all 2mn residents of one district were screened on Sunday after a local Delta outbreak involving frozen food workers was found. Authorities said yesterday they would launch a second round of testing in the district. That outbreak has now spread to neighbouring Shandong province, local authorities announced yesterday, while customs has stepped up controls on imported frozen foods. Meanwhile, Shanghai official Wu Jinglei told Chinese media that residents should avoid leaving the city unless absolutely necessary, after the municipal government reported a fresh locally transmitted case yesterday.  Authorities have suggested Beijing’s Omicron outbreak may have originated from contaminated international mail, though experts said there was little evidence to support the idea.  Leaders are anxious to avoid a full-scale lockdown of the capital ahead of a Winter Olympics they are determined to pull off smoothly, urging residents to stay put during the Lunar New Year holiday.   Thousands of athletes, media workers and foreign dignitaries arriving for the Olympics will operate in a “closed-loop” bubble strictly cut off from the outside world. On Sunday, it was announced that more than 70 Games participants had tested positive inside the bubble so far. The International Olympic Committee said yesterday that Beijing organisers were easing their Covid test standards, allowing more athletes to avoid a positive result and continue participating in the Games despite having trace amounts of the virus in their bodies. China yesterday reported 18 domestic transmissions, six of which were found in Beijing. Other recent virus hotspots, including the city of Tianjin and southern Guangdong province, reported single-digit cases.

Two US aircraft carrier groups have entered the disputed South China Sea for training, the Department of Defense said on Monday in what a senior commander said was to reassure allies and demonstrate resolve to "counter malign influence". The disputed waterway is one of many areas of tension between the United States and China, which claims a large swathe of the waters and has built military bases on artificial islands there. US Navy ships routinely sail close to these islands to challenge Chinese sovereignty claims, to Beijing's anger. The US Department of Defense said the two US Navy Carrier Strike Groups, led by their flagships USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, had begun operations in the South China Sea on Sunday. The carrier groups will carry out exercises including anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations and maritime interdiction operations to strengthen combat readiness, it said in a statement. The training will be conducted in accordance with international law in international waters, the Department of Defense added, without giving details. "Operations like these allow us to improve our combat credible capability, reassure our allies and partners, and demonstrate our resolve as a Navy to ensure regional stability and counter malign influence," it quoted Rear Admiral J.T. Anderson, commander of the strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, as saying. Both carrier groups were reported on Sunday by the US Navy to have been exercising with Japan's navy in the Philippine Sea, an area that includes waters to the east of Taiwan. The news of the US operations coincides with Taiwan reporting the latest mass incursion by China's air force into its air defence identification zone in an area close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the northern reaches of the South China Sea. China has yet to comment, but has previously said such missions are aimed at protecting its sovereignty and to prevent external interference in its sovereignty claims over Taiwan. The South China Sea, crossed by vital shipping lanes and also containing gas fields and rich fishing grounds, is also claimed by Taiwan, while Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines claim parts of it.

The local government in China's capital ordered more Covid-19 tests on Sunday as the city continued to report new local cases, less than two weeks before the start of the Winter Olympic Games. Nine locally transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms were found in Beijing on Jan. 22, down from 10 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said on Sunday, adding that six out of the nine were in the city's Fengtai District. Fengtai would organise nucleic acid tests for Covid-19 for all of its residents on Sunday, district health authorities said in a statement. Beijing city also asked residents to proactively conduct nucleic acid tests if they find themselves with Covid-19 related symptoms within 14 days after receiving overseas deliveries, local authorities said in a statement dated Saturday. China had urged people to wear masks and gloves when opening mail, especially from abroad, after authorities suggested the first case of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus found in Beijing could have arrived via a package from Canada. Cities across China have in recent weeks imposed tougher measures to control new outbreaks of Covid-19, a task that has also taken on extra urgency as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics at the start of next month. Many cities have advised residents to stay put or requiring travellers to report their trips days before their arrival. Mainland China reported 56 new Covid-19 cases on Jan. 22, down from 63 cases a day earlier, according to the country's national health authority. The National Health Commission said that 19 of the new cases were locally transmitted, down from 23 a day earlier, and the rest imported. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, fell to 34 from 43 a day earlier. There were no new deaths, leaving the death toll at 4,636. As of Jan. 22, mainland China had confirmed 105,603 cases.

China suspended dozens of international flights yesterday amid a global surge in Omicron cases, while the city of Shanghai curbed tourist activity as it rushed to head off local Covid-19 infections as imported cases rose. Cities across China are becoming more vigilant against Covid-19 ahead of the Lunar New Year travel season later this month and as Beijing readies to stage the Winter Olympics beginning Feb 4, with many local governments urging residents not to leave town unnecessarily. Shanghai’s tourism and culture authority said travel agencies and online tourism companies must once again halt organising group tours into and out of Shanghai after it reported five new domestically transmitted infections on Thursday, all linked to an arrival from overseas. The order, in line with a national guideline to cut tourist activities in provinces where new infections have emerged, came less than a month after Shanghai lifted a suspension that had come into effect in November. Late yesterday, Zhuhai city in the southern Guangdong province found seven coronavirus infections during testing schemes in local areas, with the Omicron variant detected according to preliminary sequencing result, state television said, without saying exactly how many of the seven cases were Omicron. Earlier on Friday, Zhuhai suspended all flights to the capital Beijing city. China has dramatically cut back on international arrivals during the pandemic, but the number of infected travellers arriving in Shanghai, a major financial hub, during the first 10 days of January, exceeded those for all of December. China has reported local transmissions of the highly-contagious Omicron variant in the northern city of Tianjin and three other provinces but has not said how many Omicron cases it has detected in total. Authorities, however, have warned that Omicron adds to the increased risk of Covid-19 transmission as more people return to China from overseas for the Lunar New Year holiday. China yesterday announced that 30 inbound international flights from several countries were suspended due to Covid-19 cases, including four more from the United States. So far this year, China has announced the cancellation of 74 flights from the United States. Athletes and other personnel involved in the Olympics are arriving largely on special charter flights and immediately entering a strictly enforced “closed loop” that separates them from the wider population. Unlike some other Chinese cities, Shanghai has largely refrained from broader curbs that risk disrupting normal routines and has taken a more surgical approach.

The Chinese port city of Tianjin began a new round of testing of its 14mn residents yesterday to contain the Omicron variant, as analysts warned of the growing economic costs to China of curbs to extinguish clusters of coronavirus infections. Japanese automaker Toyota said operations at its joint-venture in Tianjin, which has annual production capacity of 620,000 vehicles, had been halted since Monday due to the impact on suppliers of mandatory Covid-19 testing of city residents. “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. 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 Lunar New Year travel season later this month – and as Beijing prepares to stage the Winter Olympics from Feb. 4. The Games will take place in a “closed loop”, without international spectators. Yesterday, China announced the suspension of several international flights due to positive Covid-19 cases. Across the country, several cities are requiring those arriving from Tianjin to quarantine, and many are encouraging people to stay put during the Lunar New Year, typically the busiest time of year for travel. Tianjin, around 100km southeast of Beijing, reported 33 domestically transmitted coronavirus infections with confirmed symptoms for Tuesday, up from 10 on Monday, national data showed. It did not specify how many of the infections were Omicron, after reporting two such cases over the weekend. Tianjin 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 its second round of mass testing. The state-owned manager of the city’s port, the world’s eighth-largest by container throughput, said operations continued as employees were tested. China is likely to see ramped-up restrictions to contain Omicron, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note revising down their 2022 growth forecast to 4.3% from 4.8% 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 for the world’s second largest economy this year, as Omicron could “imply more costs than benefits under China’s Covid-zero strategy”. 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. Case numbers in Tianjin and Anyang are tiny compared with outbreaks in many other countries, and the total number of local Omicron infections is unclear. Still, Tianjin has made it harder for people to leave town, while Anyang ordered residents to remain indoors during mass testing, except for those in essential jobs or undergoing their tests. Mainland China reported a total of 166 local symptomatic cases for Tuesday, more than 110 a day earlier.

A man in China has been sentenced to seven years in jail for setting internet equipment ablaze after becoming enraged over a slow connection, authorities have said. The man, surnamed Lan, was at an internet cafe in southern Guangxi province last June when his frustration with the connection speed spilled over.  He responded by destroying a public box containing optical fibre network cables, a local court said in a statement on Monday. The court said the man "used a lighter to set a napkin he had on him on fire, then burned down a telecommunications box at a traffic intersection".  The fire caused nearly 4,000 households and offices, including a public hospital, to lose internet access for 28 to 50 hours. "After the incident, public security officials seized Lan's instrument of crime -- a lighter," according to the court in Cenxi, a small mountain city.  Lan was later hit with a seven-year jail term for "destroying public telecommunications facilities". The story prompted widespread ridicule on the Chinese internet, with one Weibo user calling the man a "big baby".

Cities across China are imposing tougher restrictions to try to control new outbreaks of Covid-19, with Tianjin battling the highly contagious Omicron variant which has been detected to have been transmitted locally in two other provinces. A Tianjin official told a Tuesday press briefing that 49 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms have been detected during the latest outbreak. The city of 14mn people, around 100km from Beijing, is now implementing tough controls to stop the coronavirus from spreading, especially to neighbouring Beijing. Tianjin, which has tightened controls on people leaving the city, yesterday closed indoor venues such as gyms and bars in one district with over 800,000 people. The outbreak in Tianjin has been linked to cases in the city of Anyang in the central Chinese province of Henan, where there have been 84 confirmed infections since Saturday. Anyang, which reported on Monday two local Omicron infections traced to a student arriving from Tianjin, has ordered its 5.5mn residents to remain at home unless going out for a Covid test or essential jobs. The country’s Omicron surge comes just weeks before the Lunar New Year, a peak travel period for millions, and cities across China are advising people to stay put, especially as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics at the start of next month. Zhang Boli, a government medical adviser, told state broadcaster CCTV that Omicron “can’t be taken lightly” even if the symptoms among Omicron infections in Tianjin appeared to be not as severe as previous variants. China has ordered the cancellation of more than two dozen scheduled flights from the United States after numerous passengers tested positive for Covid-19 when they arrived in China. “Facing Omicron directly, we found the speed of transmission was really quite fast,” said Zhang Ying, an official with Tianjin’s disease control centre, speaking in an interview aired on state television late on Monday. “Whether it is in terms of virus origin tracing or epidemiological investigations, the Omicron variant has brought along unprecedentedly massive challenges and difficulties,” she said. Tianjin confirmed its first two locally transmitted cases of Omicron at the weekend, and Zhang said 20 infected people were discovered in the first 24 hours. The city has imposed travel restrictions and launched a mass testing programme to help prevent the variant from spreading. China confirmed 110 local symptomatic cases for Jan. 10, up from 97 a day earlier, with 87 local cases in highly populated Henan province, according to a statement by the National Health Commission. Henan’s provincial capital of Zhengzhou, fighting an outbreak driven by the Delta variant, has shut non-essential public facilities like beauty salons, banned dining in restaurants, and stopped taxis and ride-hailing platforms from operating in quarantined areas, local officials said on Tuesday. A separate imported Omicron infection was reported on Monday in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, about 120km from Shanghai on China’s eastern coast. The patient had travelled from Australia to Shanghai on Jan. 5 before transferring to Wuxi. With the Lunar New Year approaching, other regions are also leaving nothing to chance. Authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, which has reported a handful of local cases of Delta since Jan. 7, closed a subway station on Tuesday and urged residents not to buy goods from high-risk countries. The southeastern island province of Hainan, a popular tourist spot, also announced that visitors would have to present a negative Covid-19 test before they could enter. There were no new deaths for Jan 10, leaving the death toll at 4,636. As of Jan 10, mainland China had 103,968 confirmed cases with symptoms, including both local ones and those arriving from overseas.

China reported more cases of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant on yesterday, with authorities on high alert over flare-ups in major cities just weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The emergence of the fast-spreading variant is yet another test of China’s zero Covid strategy, with authorities already battling several outbreaks – including in Xi’an where 13mn city residents were in their third week of lockdown. Fears grew about a cluster of infections in the northern city of Tianjin, which was linked to two Omicron cases reported yesterday in the city of Anyang around 400km away. “The general public should not leave Tianjin unless essential to do so,” city officials said in a statement Sunday. Those who need to leave must obtain official permission and test negative for the virus within 48 hours of their departure, it added. Schools and university campuses have been closed, and trains into Beijing from Tianjin have been cancelled. Road checkpoints have been set up for vehicles entering the capital. Tianjin – just 150km from Beijing – has already ordered the testing of all 14mn residents. Another 21 cases were reported in the city Monday, although the strain of virus wasn’t confirmed. Footage from state broadcaster CCTV showed masked people in Tianjin’s Nankai district queueing for virus tests on Sunday from medical workers in white hazmat suits. Gu Qing, director of the Tianjin Municipal Health Commission, told reporters at the weekend that the new cases are “mainly students and their parents who go to the same nursery and school.” The world’s most populous nation – where the coronavirus was first detected in late 2019 – slowed the spread of the virus to a trickle through its zero Covid strategy, which includes targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy quarantines. While China’s total reported cases are far lower than other virus hotspots such as the United States and Europe, there is widespread concern about the impact of Omicron. Authorities in the city of Anyang in central Henan province also announced the testing of all residents – more than 5mn people – over the weekend. The city on Monday reported two Omicron cases linked to the Tianjin cluster. Henan reported 60 new cases Monday but did not break down the tally by variant. The provincial capital Zhengzhou has closed schools and kindergartens, and stopped restaurants from accepting dine-in customers. Before the latest cluster, China had reported just a handful of Omicron cases, all linked to imported infections.

West Africa’s main regional bloc will close borders with Mali and impose stringent economic sanctions in response to an “unacceptable” delay by the country in holding promised elections after a 2020 military coup, the organisation said yesterday. The move by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) is a significant hardening of its stance on Mali, whose interim authorities have proposed holding elections in December 2025 instead of this February as originally agreed. In a communique issued after an emergency summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra, Ecowas said it found the proposed timetable for a transition back to constitutional rule totally unacceptable. This schedule “simply means that an illegitimate military transition Government will take the Malian people hostage,” it said. The 15-member bloc said it had agreed to impose additional sanctions with immediate effect. These included the closure of members’ land and air borders with Mali, the suspension of non-essential financial transactions, and the freezing of Malian state assets in Ecowas commercial banks and by the central bank of the eight-nation West African CFA franc zone. There was no immediate response from the Malian authorities, who have blamed the delay partly on the challenge of organising a democratically robust vote amid a violent insurgency. Under previous sanctions, Mali’s Ecowas membership is suspended and members of the transitional authority and their relatives are subject to travel bans and asset freezes. The new measures will be gradually lifted only after an acceptable election timeframe is finalised and progress is made towards implementing it, Ecowas said. The tougher response reflects the pressure the organisation is under to show it can protect democracy from a backslide to military rule after West and Central Africa saw four coups within 18 months. Immediately after Malian President Boubacar Ibrahim Keita was ousted in 2020, Ecowas temporarily closed its borders with Mali and halted financial flows — short-term sanctions that caused a sharp fall in imports to the landlocked country. Mali’s political upheaval has also deepened tensions with former colonial power France, which has thousands of soldiers deployed across West Africa’s Sahel region to battle insurgents.

The northern coastal city of Tianjin began testing its population of around 14mn yesterday after at least two local cases of the highly-transmissible coronavirus (Covid-19) Omicron variant were detected, state media reported. Residents in four districts would be tested over the next 24 hours while other districts would be tested the next day, the Tianjin government said. Residents will only get the green health code necessary to travel once they receive a negative result, it said. The city advised residents not to leave town for unnecessary reasons, the government said late on Saturday. So far no full lockdown order has been given. The Tianjin outbreak poses risks to Beijing and the upcoming Winter Olympics, because of the large number of commuters working and living in the two cities, the state-owned Global Times said, citing an unnamed immunologist. Commuters to Tianjin from Beijing have been asked to stay away, Xinhua reported. It comes after local transmission of the imported Omicron variant was found in the southern city of Guangzhou, according to a national health official in December, though the number of cases was not disclosed. China reported 165 confirmed coronavirus cases for January 8, up from 159 a day earlier, its health authority said yesterday. Of the new infections, 92 were locally transmitted, according to a statement by the National Health Commission, from 95 a day earlier. Most of the new local cases were in Henan and Shaanxi provinces. China reported 46 new asymptomatic cases, which it classifies separately from confirmed cases, compared with 52 a day earlier. There were no new fatalities, leaving the death toll at 4,636. Mainland China had 103,619 confirmed cases as of January 8. Chinese authorities have already been struggling with a larger outbreak centred on the northwestern city of Xi’an that has sparked questioning of the country’s zero-tolerance policy of strict lockdowns and immediate mass testing to curb outbreaks. Xi’an, historic home to China’s famed Terracotta Warriors, was locked down last month, forcing its 13mn residents indoors. New case numbers there have slowed in recent days. Officials have faced complaints from Xi’an residents over chaotic handling of the lockdown, including poor access to food and daily essentials, and viral cases such as a miscarriage suffered by an eight-month pregnant woman who was refused entry to a hospital without a Covid-19 test. Yesterday Beijing’s traffic management authority warned people to stay away from the special vehicles used to ferry people to and from the Winter Olympic venues in the event of a traffic incident. Staff involved in the Winter Olympics will be kept in a “closed loop” operation and asked to avoid contact with those outside it, the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau said in a post on its Twitter-like Weibo account. If there is an accident with one of the vehicles, people should maintain a safe distance, avoid contact with those inside and wait for professionals to arrive at the scene, the post said. On Wednesday organisers said they had begun the “closed loop” operation, in which participants can only leave if they are exiting the country or undergo quarantine, to prevent an outbreak among Games participants from leaking into China’s public. The 2022 Games open on February 4. More than 2,000 international athletes are set to come to China for the Games, plus 25,000 other “stakeholders”, a large number from overseas. Organisers did not say how many of those people would be in the closed loop.

The northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday advised its nearly 14 million people to stay home while it conducted mass Covid testing after a spate of recent cases, including two caused by the Omicron variant, state-controlled media reported. Tianjin emerged as a new area of concern after more than 20 Covid cases were reported there in the last few days, most of them imported from abroad, according to the National Health Commission. They include at least two cases of the Omicron variant, as well as 15 infections among elementary and middle school students, according to various state media reports. The city near the capital Beijing launched its mass testing early Sunday, advising residents to stay at or near home to be available for the community-level nucleic-acid screening. So far, however, no larger lockdown order was seen. Chinese authorities have already been struggling with a larger outbreak centred on the northwestern city of Xi'an that has sparked questioning of the country's zero-tolerance policy of strict lockdowns and immediate mass testing to curb outbreaks. China, where the coronavirus was first detected in 2019, has thus far reported only a handful of Omicron cases. Tianjin residents have been told that until they obtain a negative test result, they will not receive a "green" code on smartphone Covid-tracing apps that nearly all people in China are now required to present when using public transport and in other situations. Tianjin is a major port city about 150 kilometres (90 miles) southeast of Beijing. Xi'an, historic home to China's famed Terracotta Warriors, was locked down last month, forcing its 13 million residents indoors. New case numbers there have slowed in recent days.  Officials have faced complaints from Xi'an residents over chaotic handling of the lockdown, including poor access to food and daily essentials, and viral cases such as a miscarriage suffered by an eight-month pregnant woman who was refused entry to a hospital without a Covid test. China's government has touted its initial strict response to Covid, which has largely brought the pandemic under control within its borders, as preferrable to sometimes lax and chaotic measures overseas. International flights are a fraction of pre-pandemic levels with arrivals undergoing strict weeks-long quarantine, and the mandatory track-and-trace apps mean close contacts are usually detected and quarantined quickly. China is hewing strictly to the zero-tolerance approach as outbreaks continue to emerge in the run-up to next month's Beijing Winter Olympics. China's official tally since the start of the pandemic -- just over 100,000 Covid cases -- is a fraction of the record one million cases logged by the US in a single day earlier this month. Cases from China's chaotic initial outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020, however, are widely believed to have been under-reported. China's official death toll has stayed under 5,000.

Xian, a Chinese city almost two weeks into a lockdown, is demanding officials “strictly and properly” implement Covid-19 curbs, as new local cases among its 13mn residents have started to grow at a slower pace.  Xian, which on Dec 23 imposed strict curbs on travel within the city and leaving town, reported 95 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed clinical symptoms for Monday, up slightly from 90 a day earlier, official data showed yesterday. Monday also marked the second consecutive day for which Xian reported less than 100 local cases since Dec. 24. “The various work that needs to be done must only be strengthened,” said Liu Guozhong, provincial head of the Communist Party in Shaanxi, of which Xian is its capital. The epidemic control effort is at a pivotal moment, Liu said. The latest infections brings the tally of local cases to over 1,700 since Dec 9 in Xian’s latest outbreak. “We’d rather widen our identification of groups at risk than to overlook a single person,” Liu was quoted as saying in an article published by the Xian government on Tuesday. No one should be overlooked during mass testing in key Xian areas and “household doors” should be closely watched in rural parts of the city to make sure people are complying with travel curbs, Liu said. Many people have been banned from leaving their residential compounds unless for urgent matters approved by their community-based authority. All residents need to have proof of a negative test result checked by community staffers before they can seek medical services at hospitals. The restrictions have also curtailed access to daily necessities, with many people unable to go out to shop, leaving them dependent on deliveries. Xian has said curbs can be loosened when the time is proper to gradually resume normality within certain compounds when their virus risk becomes lower. Xian’s case count is tiny compared to many outbreaks elsewhere in the world. But Beijing is keen to keep a lid on outbreaks ahead of the Winter Olympics in February, and the Communist Party’s once-every-five-years congress expected later in the year. Xian is stepping up efforts to achieve “zero cases in communities”, a situation where all new infections are found among people already in quarantine, state television quoted Chen Zhijun, an official at Xian’s disease control authority, as saying. That will create good conditions for the city’s next downgrade in virus curbs, Chen said. In areas where infections are concentrated, people who have been in contact with the close contacts of cases should be moved to centralised facilities for quarantine, Xian said on Sunday, citing an unidentified virus control expert. The city will rectify “weaknesses in the services” for people at certain quarantined facilities, a city official told reporters in a press conference on Monday.  Meanwhile, a Chinese city has locked down its 1.1mn residents after reports of new coronavirus cases as officials rushed to contain even small outbreaks just over four weeks before the Winter Olympics begin.  The curbs in the city of Yuzhou, in the central province of Henan, are similar to those imposed for nearly two weeks in the industrial hub of Xian, which has become China’s latest Covid-19 epicentre. Yuzhou, 700km southwest of Beijing, has ordered all residents to remain indoors and not to leave town, the local Communist Party said in a statement late Monday. “So far, the source of the virus is unknown, the number of cases is unclear ... the virus control and prevention situation in our city is very severe,” authorities in Xuchang city, which has jurisdiction over Yuzhou, said in a statement yesterday. “To curb and quash the epidemic within the shortest amount of time is a high-priority political task facing all officials and people in the city,” they said. The greater Xuchang area reported two locally transmitted infections with confirmed clinical symptoms, and 18 local asymptomatic carriers for Monday, official data showed. It was not clear how many were in Yuzhou. Vehicles were banned from Yuzhou’s roads unless they have clearance from virus control authorities, and authorities ordered a halt to activity in supermarkets apart from the supply of daily necessities. Yuzhou’s case count is tiny compared with outbreaks in many other places around the world. But China is keen to keep outbreaks under control ahead of the Feb 4-20 Winter Olympics, being held in Beijing and the nearby province of Hebei, and the Communist Party’s once-every-five-years congress expected later in the year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un put the economy front and centre of an agenda-setting speech at the end of a key ruling party meeting, state media reported yesterday, with no mention of the United States. Instead of the policy positions on diplomacy for which Kim’s New Year statements have been closely watched in recent years, he focused on food security and development at a plenary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The impoverished, nuclear-armed nation has been under a rigid self-imposed coronavirus blockade that has hammered its economy. In a speech at the end of the party meeting on Friday, Kim acknowledged the “harsh situation” in 2021 as he laid out plans for the coming year, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He described the challenges of 2022 as “a great life-and-death struggle” and set “an important task for making radical progress in solving the food, clothing and housing problem for the people”, KCNA said.  The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting border closure saw the country record its biggest economic contraction in over two decades in 2020, according to the South Korean central bank. Concerns have grown about a full-blown food crisis in North Korea, and a United Nations human rights expert warned in October that the most vulnerable were “at risk of starvation”. Kim, who took power just over a decade ago after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, said battling the pandemic was one of the main goals for the coming year. “Emergency epidemic prevention work should be made a top priority in the state work,” Kim said according to KCNA. Analysts pointed to the impact of Covid as the reason for the sharpened focus on the economy. “The pandemic continues to constrain North Korea’s diplomacy, decimate its economy, and make border controls the top security issue,” Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at the Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told AFP. Kim did not mention the United States or directly address foreign policy. But he said Pyongyang would continue to build up its military capabilities keeping in mind “the military environment of the Korean peninsula” and the changing international situation. That includes ensuring loyalty and obedience in the military, improving militias, and “the production of the powerful equipment corresponding with the modern warfare”, KCNA quoted Kim as saying. It did not provide further details. “Overall, Kim might be aware that revealing sophisticated military development plans while people are suffering food shortages and harsh conditions outside of Pyongyang might not be such a good idea this year,” tweeted Chad O’Carroll of specialist website NK News. “North Korea is more or less in survival mode for 2022 - and doesn’t really know what to do... (about) foreign policy right now.” Pyongyang is under multiple sets of international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, which have progressed rapidly under Kim. But the worsening economic situation during the pandemic has not blunted those programmes, and North Korea has continued to pursue weapons development, a UN report said in October. In 2021, North Korea said it successfully tested a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile; a long-range cruise missile; a train-launched weapon; and what it described as a hypersonic warhead. The country has stayed away from talks on its nuclear programme since the collapse in 2019 of the dialogue between Kim and then US president Donald Trump. Under Trump’s successor Joe Biden, the United States has repeatedly declared its willingness to meet North Korean representatives, while saying it will seek denuclearisation. But Pyongyang has so far dismissed the offer, accusing Washington of pursuing “hostile” policies.