In recent days, Chinese researchers and officials have begun uploading genome sequence data from dozens of coronavirus samples to Gisaid, a global online database that allows scientists to track mutations of the virus.

The data, while limited, show that the primary Omicron sub-variants spreading in China are similar to those that have already been identified in Europe and North America, where they have already been mostly outcompeted by more virulent strains.

Japan, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy have also imposed restrictions on Chinese arrivals in anticipation of a wave of visitors as the country reopens its borders. Italy found more than half the passengers on one post-Christmas flight from China to Milan were infected, but on Thursday said no new variants had been found among the sequenced cases.

Gisaid said that in the four days to Wednesday, China had submitted 167 virus genomes and that provincial offices with the Chinese CDC had “noticeably increased the number of submissions of genome sequence and associated metadata from samples”.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow

The estimates — which include 37mn people who were infected on Tuesday alone, or 2.6 per cent of the population — were revealed by Sun Yang, a deputy director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in a Wednesday health briefing, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Sun said the rate of Covid’s spread in the country was still rising and estimated that more than half of the population in Beijing and Sichuan were already infected, the people briefed on the meeting said.

Meanwhile, the estimates of 250mn Covid cases raise further doubts about the accuracy of how Beijing accounts for deaths from the disease. The country has officially reported only eight deaths since December 1. Top health officials this week said they had narrowed the definition of what constituted a Covid death, in a move that reduced the public death tally.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow

Ten Chinese companies, producing everything from Ibuprofen to Covid-19 testing kits, have in recent days issued statements or confirmed in interviews that all of their production would be sent to government groups rather than fulfilling private orders.

“It’s a desperate situation, but it’s every man for themselves,” said an official in the eastern city of Nanjing, where four producers of rapid Covid-19 testing kits have been asked to report their production to the government and prioritise local customers.

Shortages of rapid Covid-19 testing kits have become particularly acute as demand from consumers has increased for the at-home tests. China’s National Medical Products Administration has licensed the sale of kits from 42 producers, but manufacturers are concentrated in a handful of regions, leaving the majority of provinces without a local supplier.

Zhejiang’s strategy has helped ensure batches of new testing kits make it into local pharmacies. The provincial capital Hangzhou announced on Monday the distribution of kits to 2,400 local pharmacies, but residents said they were still finding it hard to get any.

“I ran through six pharmacies and waited for half an hour” to get five testing kits, said Qiu Yao, a tech worker in the city.

Qiu said she gave two away to an old man who had arrived too late to purchase any. “He was clearly very ill and had a fever,” she said. “I’m saving the rest for emergencies, as I need positive test results to apply for sick leave.”

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow

The city’s defences held again in the spring when targeted measures such as localised quarantines helped it avoid a sweeping lockdown such as the one that immobilised Shanghai for eight weeks. Beijing’s party secretary, Cai Qi, a longtime ally of President Xi Jinping, was rewarded for his efforts with a promotion to the party’s most powerful body, the Politburo Standing Committee, in October.

Over the past week, however, China’s most important citadel has been breached. Since Xi abruptly ditched his contentious zero-Covid strategy of containment, the virus has raced through the capital’s 22mn people, even as streets remain empty and most businesses are closed.

Some Beijing residents have already begun questioning the prudence of abandoning zero-Covid with few mitigation measures in place.

“Beijing’s healthcare system isn’t ready for an outbreak like this,” the nursing home executive said. “The government invested too much in zero-Covid and too little in better healthcare.

“If residents in my nursing home get Covid and show severe symptoms, their survival depends on their underlying health and to a large degree, luck.”

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow

Xi has been forced into a rare retreat after a drumbeat of youthful dissent over his draconian pandemic controls sparked unprecedented protests in more than 20 Chinese cities.

Standing in his way of an orderly exit are about 85mn people — one-third of the 267mn Chinese citizens aged over 60s — who have not received a third vaccine dose needed for a high level of protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant. Among those aged 80 and over, the under-protected rate surges to about 60 per cent, or 21mn people.

Also to blame is Beijing’s refusal to import foreign jabs with superior messenger RNA technology and silence from the very top of the Communist party about the importance of vaccines.

A Lancet study from Singapore published this month found individuals who received three doses of China’s inactivated virus vaccines, made by pharmaceutical groups Sinovac and state-owned Sinopharm, were nearly twice as likely to develop severe Covid as people who received three mRNA jabs. Those with the Chinese shots were also 50 per cent more likely to be hospitalised.

A 65-year-old man in Shanghai who asked not to be named said his reasoning for avoiding the vaccine had changed over the past three years. At first he was sceptical about its effectiveness, after the Chinese jabs were pushed through before research was available to the public. Later, he became afraid his immune system would be attacked by the vaccine. Now, he believes the virus is weaker than the effects of the vaccine itself.

“But once China starts significantly relaxing Covid restrictions, more people will have the incentive to get vaccinated because they will see case numbers surge,” he said.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for Global Health at the Council for Foreign Relations think-tank, noted that officials had quietly confirmed the country’s top leadership was vaccinated only in recent months.

A vaccine mandate announced in July was scrapped within days following a public backlash. Now, officials are trying a lighter touch. Chinese business publication Caixin reported last week that quotas for a vaccination drive targeting the elderly had been distributed to local governments.

Chen of Trivium said the targets would spur officials to offer incentives and rewards to win over seniors. “In China, targets are rarely missed, especially when local government officials’ career prospects are tied to fulfilling [them].”

But a provincial health official in the northern city of Shijiazhuang said “a lot of doubts” persisted because the vaccines did not prevent infection. “Lots of people who’ve gotten vaccinated are still catching Covid. How do you explain that to people?”

Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing and Eleanor Olcott in Hong Kong

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow

The State Council, China’s cabinet, pared the mandatory quarantine for close contacts of positive Covid-19 cases and overseas arrivals from seven days to five, while maintaining three further days of home isolation.

In practice, both quarantine procedures, which are carried out in centralised government facilities, have often been enforced for longer than the mandated periods. The latest changes also included ending the tracing of second-degree close contacts of confirmed positive cases.

The newly announced measures also called for an escalation of China’s vaccination campaign, particularly among the elderly, who have been the most hesitant to accept Covid jabs. Experts said increasing the vaccination rate of seniors was essential to any eventual reopening.

In late June, Chinese authorities halved the quarantine requirement for international arrivals from two weeks to one, and reduced the home self-isolation period from seven days to three, in what was then the first significant relaxation of restrictions since the lockdowns in Shanghai and Beijing.

China-focused equities were buoyed by the announcement on Friday, with the CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks closing up 2.8 per cent, having traded as much as 3.8 per cent higher following the announcement.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng China Enterprises index, which tracks mainland companies listed in the city, rose 8.3 per cent on Friday, having been up 5.5 per cent earlier in the day in the wake of Wall Street’s best one-day gain in two years.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Ryan McMorrow