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Coronavirus China
ChinaPolitics

China’s zero-Covid policy under growing strain as cases continue to spread across country

  • The city of Guangzhou is the worst hit by the growing wave of cases across the country, with more than 2,000 cases on Wednesday
  • Although the caseload is small by international standards, doubts are growing about whether the current approach can stop Omicron variants from spreading

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Authorities around China are continuing to impose tight restrictions under the zero-Covid policy. Photo: AP
Phoebe Zhang
Covid-19 infections have been rising sharply across China despite increasingly stringent controls, amid growing public discontent and doubts about whether the zero-Covid approach will work against fast, stealthy Omicron variants.

On Wednesday, China reported 8,176 local infections, up from 7,475 a day earlier. Although this is a small case count compared with the rest of the world, it marks a sharp rise since the end of last month when about 1,000 daily cases were reported.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, the centre of the current surge, the outbreak continued spreading.

Authorities have been trying to quell the outbreak for weeks but daily numbers have spiked from double digits late last month to more than 1,000 over the weekend and then to 2,637 new infections on Wednesday.

New cases in Beijing also jumped to the highest level in more than five months, with 32 local cases and 48 asymptomatic ones, with many new cases found by community testing in the past few days.

Elsewhere in the country, the number of cases reported ranged from single figures to a few hundred, despite increasingly stringent controls and prolonged lockdowns.

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