Panic Buying In Beijing Over Lockdown Fears - 51 New COVID Deaths In Shanghai

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There are growing fears that a Shanghai-style lockdown may be in store for Beijing after mass testing was ordered yesterday for parts of the city -  a prospect which helped drive the Chinese markets broadly lower overnight - and which has sparked panic buying in the Chinese Capital (see Reuters Panic buying in Beijing as district starts mass COVID testing).

While the number of officially reported confirmed COVID cases in Beijing remains low, Beijing's Municipal Health Commission (see Notice on Adjustment of Risk Level below) has declared 1 area of the city to be at High-Risk (Songyuli Community, Panjiayuan Street, Chaoyang District), while 6 others as listed at medium-risk. 

The planned response, announced yesterday, sounds remarkably like the playbook announced by  Shanghai a month ago. 

When Cai Qi dispatched the epidemic situation and went to Chaoyang District for on-site inspection, he emphasized taking the most decisive measures to control the risk as quickly as possible and resolutely block the virus transmission chain. Chen Jining and Zhang Yankun dispatched the inspection together.

         (Excerpt)

Cai Qi emphasized that Chaoyang District is the top priority of the current epidemic prevention and control. It is necessary to organize regional nucleic acid screening in an orderly manner in towns and villages, and expand the scope of testing as appropriate. Strengthen overall planning, integrate resources and forces of all parties, and improve emergency response capabilities in actual combat. Strengthen the service guarantee for residents in the closed (management) control area, and there must be an adequate supply of living materials.

Government officials in the closed (management) control area will be turned into volunteers on the spot to participate in community prevention and control. The closed (tube) control area should reduce the flow of people and prevent the risk from spilling over. Chaoyang District suspends offline training by off-campus training institutions, and encrypts the frequency of nucleic acid testing in all primary and secondary schools. Community health service centers should work hand in hand with schools, strengthen medical-school cooperation, and extend the scope of health monitoring to teachers and students living together.

Cai Qi emphasized that social prevention and control must be strictly and strictly followed, and external control and internal screening must be constantly grasped. Strictly manage entry and return to Beijing. For those who have not undergone nucleic acid testing within 72 hours after entering and returning to Beijing, they will be prompted through the health treasure pop-up window to urge them to test as soon as possible. Increase the number of nucleic acid sampling points to facilitate the citizens to test nearby, and encourage willingness to do all the tests. Incorporate the decoration industry into the scope of community prevention and control, strengthen the epidemic prevention management of elderly tour groups, and implement relevant epidemic prevention requirements such as health code inspection and nucleic acid testing. The city has dispatched guidance groups and supervision groups to Chaoyang District and Shunyi District to strengthen guidance and supervision on the handling of the epidemic. Hold press conferences, release epidemic information in a timely manner, respond to social concerns, and guide citizens to fulfill their responsibilities for epidemic prevention.

There are reports of long queues at shops, empty shelves, and growing apprehension over what is to come.  When Shanghai began city-wide testing, they were seeing 50 confirmed cases a day. Within days that number surged 50-fold. 

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, their Municipal Health Commision overnight reported:

The Municipal Health Commission announced this morning (25th): From 0 to 24:00 on April 24, 2022, there were 2,472 new confirmed cases of local new coronary pneumonia and 16,983 asymptomatic infections, of which 846 confirmed cases were previously asymptomatic As for the outcome of infected persons, 1,557 confirmed cases and 16,835 asymptomatic infections were found in isolation and control, and the rest were found in the investigation of relevant risk groups. 1 new case of asymptomatic infection of imported new coronary pneumonia was found in closed-loop control.

No mention of deaths is made in this local daily announcement, but we learn from the NHC daily report that 51 additional deaths (all from Shanghai) were reported over the past 24 hours. This brings the death toll in Shanghai to 138 people over the past week. 

Admittedly, all of the numbers we get out of China should be taken with a large grain of salt, and the true death toll in Shanghai (and across all of China) is likely much higher than officially stated. 

Given the lack of community spread of COVID in China over the past 2 years, and the lackluster protection offered by the Sinovac vaccine, Omicron is likely to find a target-rich environment on the Mainland, and is going to be very hard to contain. 

Stay tuned.