Beijing (AP) – China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to Shanghai, including 2,000 military medical personnel, in an effort to stem the rapid spread of the COVID -19 outbreak in China’s largest city.
The city conducted mass testing on 25 million people on Monday as what should have been two rounds of arrests entered its second week. Although many factories and finance companies have been able to continue operating separately from employees, concerns have risen over the potential impact on China’s financial capital economy and the prolonged closure of its main shipping and manufacturing hub.
The highly contagious form of the Omicron BA.2 virus tests China’s ability to maintain its zero-COVID approach, which aims to prevent the spread of the epidemic by isolating all people who test positive for symptoms. Shanghai has transformed exhibition halls and other structures into large isolation centers where people with little or no symptoms are placed in a sea of beds separated by temporary partitions.
On Monday, China announced more than 13,000 new cases nationwide in the past 24 hours, including nearly 12,000 asymptomatic. There are approximately 9,000 cases in Shanghai. Another serious outbreak is occurring in Jilin Province in northeast China, where new cases have reached 3,500.
The English-language China Daily reported that nearly 15,000 health workers from the neighboring provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang left hospitals by bus to Shanghai on Monday morning. More than 2,000 personnel from the army, navy and joint logistical support forces arrived on Sunday, the Chinese military newspaper reported.
At least four provinces have sent doctors, nurses and other health care workers to Shanghai, the state-owned China Daily said.
While most stores and other businesses in Shanghai are closed, major manufacturers including automaker General Motors Co. and Volkswagen AG says their plant is still operating. VW reduced production on Interruption of Transmission Parts.
Operating companies implement “closed-loop” strategies that separate employees from the outside. Thousands of stock traders and other people in the financial sector are sleeping in their offices, the Daily Economic News reports.
Three out of five foreign companies operating in Shanghai said they lowered their sales forecasts this year, according to a survey conducted last week by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in China. A third of the 120 companies that responded to the survey said investments were stuck.
Source: Huffpost
