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 | | The New York Times |
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 | | Rush hour in Beijing.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images |
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China's economic Covid slump |
These days, the country's continued lockdowns and mass quarantines are having far-reaching consequences on its ability to do business, which in turn is having a significant effect on the global economy. For more, I spoke to my colleague Chris Buckley, who covers China. |
What's going on in the Chinese economy? |
The lockdown of Shanghai — China's biggest and most commercially important city — was a direct blow to the economy, and it gummed up industrial production, logistics and retail in a very important part of China. That had ripple effects across the Chinese economy and internationally. |
But the bigger problem going forward is the draining effects of uncertainty about the country's Covid policies — especially possible Covid outbreaks and lockdowns — on economic activity. You get the sense from businesspeople in China, from multinationals right through to small shops, that this uncertainty hovering over the economy is making it difficult for them to make investment decisions, to travel or to buy property. It's hanging over the economy like a dark cloud. |
What's the current Covid situation? |
The latest numbers put out by the Chinese National Health Commission suggest this pattern where there's not major outbreaks but smaller bursts across the country that are troublesome for local governments because they're under pressure to get even these clusters quickly under control. |
Recently, we've seen a resurgence of cases in Shanghai. Lanzhou, a big city in Northwest China, has gone into a shutdown to try to eradicate an outbreak there. And we've seen other large counties and cities in the east close for mass testing to try to eradicate clusters. But with Omicron and its changing variants, it's very difficult to keep extinguishing these outbreaks — it's draining for residents and also for the local officials in charge. |
The official numbers involved aren't enormous. Wednesday, there were 292 newly confirmed cases, including so-called asymptomatic cases. That's tiny by the standard of most countries, but with the Chinese government committed to "zero Covid," that still creates enormous pressures on local officials and populations. |
Wait, all this for 292 reported cases? |
Yes. Exactly. The real number may be somewhat higher. But the Chinese government is trying to achieve something very difficult: balancing their dynamic Covid-zero policies with trying to restore economic growth. And I don't think we've seen the real answer to how they're going to escape from the quandaries that this is creating for China. |
How are Chinese people responding? |
My general impression from Lanzhou and other places where lockdowns and other heavy restrictions have been put into place is that it remains true that the population as a whole is still going along with these demands. But I do think there's a growing edge of impatience. |
Just in the past couple of days we've also seen protests by depositors who had money in small banks in Hunan, a province in Central China. We've also seen this small but ominous mortgage strike by people who've been buying property in several Chinese provinces as well. Those protests aren't directly connected to Covid, but I think they reflect the general economic pain and uncertainty. |
What does the future look like for the Covid-zero policy? |
The People's Daily, the main newspaper of the Communist Party, just started putting out a series of editorials that will be rolled out in the next week or so, making the case for sticking with dynamic zero-Covid policies. That's a strong signal that, whatever bad news might be in the economic numbers, the government wants to tell the population that this policy may be painful, but it's necessary, and ultimately it's working. The editorial on Thursday made the case that ultimately these tough policies are best for the economy and mean that you avoid masses of sick people and potential deaths, particularly among the elderly. |
In recent weeks there have been some signs that the Chinese government was beginning to try to relieve some of the disruptive effects of some of the rules — so, for example, shortening the quarantine time for people coming back into the country. |
So, we still seem to be whiplashed between efforts to return to normality and then these relatively small outbreaks of cases with officials in the affected cities moving in the other direction — taking very stringent measures to lock down. I don't think we're near the end of these policy tensions and the drag they create on Chinese growth. |
 | | A researcher from the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia took an oral swab from a bat in a Cambodian cave last year.Cindy Liu/Reuters |
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Should we tinker with viruses? |
In mid-2020, a team of scientists catching bats in Laotian caves discovered coronaviruses that were strikingly similar to the one that had recently started to wreak havoc around the world. |
Some of those researchers continued experimenting with one of these mysterious bat viruses in a high-security laboratory in Paris, giving a close relative of the Covid virus the chance to evolve new traits. The research has been fruitful, leading to discoveries about how the bat viruses could jump to humans and the kind of harm they could do. |
Nevertheless, my colleague Carl Zimmer writes, lab experiments like these are rekindling a longstanding debate among scientists about the wisdom of tinkering with viruses that are so closely related to a known pathogen. |
Proponents argue that experiments are crucial for understanding and preventing future pandemics. But critics say that scientists should not run experiments that might make viruses better able to spread among people, given the small but real chance that these altered pathogens might escape into the outside world. |
What else we're following |
My husband, who is 85, is slowly wasting from loneliness, boredom and isolation. He gets weaker and weaker by the week. I am a full-time care giver, 69, with some help. I wear a mask even in the coffee drive-through. This is not a life. Every time we get hope that things will go back to "normal," along comes another Covid variant. This was not how we pictured our last few years together. — Susan B Guinasso, Redlands, Calif. |
Let us know how you're dealing with the pandemic. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter. |
| Thanks for reading. I'm off Monday, but you'll be in my colleagues' safe hands. I'll be back Wednesday. — Jonathan |
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