China’s workers return to office as cities live with COVID
Mask-wearing With millions of people infected with COVID-19 across the nation, passengers in China’s two largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, are swarming the subway trains as they get closer to living with the virus.
President Xi Jinping abandoned the nation’s zero-COVID policy in the face of protests and an expanding outbreak after years of brutal anti-coronavirus restrictions.
However, following the initial shock of the policy reversal and a few weeks in which residents of Beijing and Shanghai stayed inside, either coping with the illness or attempting to avoid it, there are indications that life is moving toward returning to a more normal state.
On Monday, as locals traveled to work in Beijing and Shanghai, the subway trains were crowded, and several of the cities’ main thoroughfares were congested with stationary cars.
Over the weekend, crowds gathered at the Bund, a business district in Shanghai, for the annual Christmas market. On Sunday, large crowds flocked to Shanghai Disneyland and Beijing’s Universal Studios for the winter holiday season, waiting in line for attractions while dressed in holiday garb.
According to a local newspaper, The 21st Century Business Herald, there were 132 percent more trips this weekend to scenic locations in Guangzhou than there were last weekend.
The last major nation to treat COVID as an endemic disease is China. The $17 trillion economy’s growth rate had been lowered by its containment measures to its weakest level in nearly 50 years, affecting international trade and supply lines.
In the short run, when the COVID wave extends to manufacturing sectors and workers become ill, the economy is predicted to suffer even more before improving next year, according to analysts.
On Saturday, Tesla shut down operations at its Shanghai facility, a week before it had planned to halt the majority of manufacturing there. The business omitted a justification.
Credit: Al-Jazeera
