Images of the Disneyland park in Shanghai suddenly confined and tourists stuck inside until they tested negative, or those of the iPhone factory in Zhengzhou have gone around the world. Last spring, it was the people of Shanghai screaming their frustration at their windows. In effect for nearly three years, China’s Zero Covid policy is finding it increasingly difficult to pass on to the population. Because the population is tested daily. At the slightest case detected, neighborhoods, even entire cities, find themselves confined, and positive cases quarantined.
And this is not without consequences for the economy, whose statistics on exports, producer prices and manufacturing activity are all in the red. Even the number of Chinese billionaires suffers. That is to say ! Their number is experiencing its biggest drop in twenty-four years, according to the ranking established by the Hurun cabinet.
Yet no change seems to be on the horizon. This weekend, the health authorities hammered home that the Zero Covid policy would continue to be applied “unwaveringly”. Here is a return on the news of the Covid-19 in China in “5Q”.