Beijing doubles down on COVID zero ahead of Party Congress

Beijing is doubling down on its COVID-zero policy, as a swell of cases sparked another round of mobility restrictions and testing requirements ahead of the 20th Party Congress, which is slated to begin in five days.

The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s house newspaper, published a second commentary in as many days on the “sustainable” COVID-zero policy, stating that the measures are “​​the most economical and effective.”

• A commentary published yesterday urged Chinese people to “strengthen confidence in and have patience with the current epidemic prevention and control policies.”

The pledge of support for COVID zero comes as major cities ramp up mass testing in a bid to contain a flare in coronavirus infections, which have risen to the highest since August after an uptick in domestic travel during the Golden Week holiday last week.

• The National Health Commission reported for yesterday 1,662 new indigenous cases: 637 in Inner Mongolia, 375 in Xinjiang, 24 in Shanghai, and 1 in Beijing.
• As of Monday, 36 Chinese cities were under various degrees of lockdown restrictions, affecting around 196.9 million people, compared with 179.7 million in the previous week, according to Nomura per Reuters.
• In Shanghai, authorities said late on Monday that all 16 districts would ramp up mass testing of its 25 million residents from once to at least twice a week until November 10. Three of the city’s downtown districts on Monday temporarily closed entertainment venues, and will require all returning travelers from other provinces to undergo one nucleic acid test every day for three days upon arrival.
• Authorities in the northwestern city of Xi’an suspended in-person classes at schools and closed many public spaces, including the Terracotta Warriors Museum.
• The Inner Mongolian city of Hohhot is fighting the country’s first outbreak of a new Omicron subvariant, BF.7, which is expected to be more transmissible than other strains and better at bypassing preexisting immunity from vaccinations and previous infections than the dominant variant, BA.5.
• The BF.7 subvariant has also surfaced in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, with local cases more than tripling on October 10 from a day earlier. Inbound travelers will be subjected to three tests over three days, authorities in the city of 18 million people said on Tuesday.

Last week, Xinjiang authorities suspended all travel services out of the region to stop the spread of COVID, just a few weeks after many of the region’s cities had emerged from a monthslong lockdown that caused public outcry over shortages in food and other critical supplies.

The new mobility restrictions have also weighed down consumer spending: Not even a nationwide, weeklong holiday could spur people to buy much under COVID-zero rules, despite the championing editorial from the People’s Daily.

• China’s services activity contracted in September after expanding for three consecutive months, according to Caixin estimates.
• Tourist trips dropped 18.2% compared with last year’s holiday season, with 422 million trips recorded over the weeklong National Day holiday, China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism reported on Friday. Tourism revenues also fell even more, dropping 26% compared with last year to about $40 billion over the holiday.
• Chinese stocks slumped by 2.2% on their return from the Golden Week holiday, to the lowest in two-and-a-half years.
• Meanwhile, China’s central bank Employment Sentiment Index, which measures households’ sentiment about the job market, declined to 35.4 in the third quarter, the lowest level since data began in 2010.