There is great unrest in China: omicron is spreading throughout the country. First in the port city of Tianjin, now also in Shanghai, Shenzhen and since the weekend in the capital. On Sunday evening, the Beijing administration decreed that middle and high school students will receive online lessons in the future. The elementary schools are already closed because of the upcoming Spring Festival. Will there be lockdowns again like in February 2020, when the People’s Republic stood still for a full six weeks and the economy collapsed?
In the midst of this burgeoning panic, the Beijing Bureau of Statistics is delivering a bit of normality. China’s economy grew by 8.1 percent in the past year, the authority said on Monday. Compared to the previous year, the second largest economy in the world grew by four percent between October and December. The growth in gross domestic product was therefore slightly better than analysts had expected on average. In the third quarter, growth was still 4.9 percent – after record growth of 18.3 percent in the first and 7.9 percent in the second quarter. The strong plus over the year can be explained by the low basis for comparison due to the pandemic in the previous year.
With a zero-Covid strategy, mass testing, quarantines and entry restrictions, the world’s most populous country got the virus under control faster than most other countries. Exports in particular benefited from this. The world ordered everything you need in the home office from China: furniture, computers, coffee machines. Compared to the previous year, exports increased by around 30 percent. In total, China exported goods worth 3.36 trillion dollars (2.92 trillion euros) to other countries. The value of all imports was $2.69 trillion, bringing China’s foreign trade surplus to a new record of $676 billion. Nevertheless, economists are now predicting a year with significantly less momentum.
As countries around the world have begun to live with the coronavirus, Beijing’s leaders are more committed than ever to lockdown. But can the spread of the omicron variant really be contained?
The rate of fully vaccinated people in China is around 85 percent
The vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm, which contain killed corona viruses, are mainly used in the People’s Republic. The rate of fully vaccinated people in China is around 85 percent, which is higher than in Germany. However, previously unpublished studies, such as those by the University of Hong Kong, recently provided evidence that the two vaccines could trigger an insufficient antibody response against omicron.
The authorities are responsible for the fact that no mRNA vaccines are injected in China, for example by Biontech or Moderna. In the spring of last year, Biontech founded a joint venture with the Chinese pharmaceutical company Fosun. By the end of 2021, one billion booster vaccinations could have been produced in China for China, but Beijing refused to approve it for political reasons. In the People’s Republic, the virus is hitting a poorly protected population.
The US investment bank Goldman Sachs therefore warned in a study that a large omicron eruption could have serious consequences for the economy in China. It lowered its forecast for China’s growth to 4.3 percent last week. The World Bank also recently corrected its forecast from 5.3 to 5.1 percent.
In Beijing, the newspapers are now publishing all the places that the only woman there who has been infected with omicron has visited in the past 14 days. The city government ordered that all visitors to Beijing would have to undergo a corona test within 72 hours of arrival. The new requirements should apply until the end of March. Beijing is already requiring people who want to go to the city to be tested in the 48 hours before departure. You cannot board a plane or bullet train to Beijing without a negative result.
The best thing is not to travel at all, say the authorities. And by the way, no more mail either: Researchers have detected traces of omicrons on a shipment from Canada, Chinese state media warn. If you still receive mail, you should put on a mask to open it, put on disposable gloves and definitely: go outside.