BEIJING — Mainland China is facing its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the country clamped down on the pandemic in 2020, with major cities rushing to limit business activity.
Shenzhen, the biggest city in the manufacturing hub of Guangdong province, told all businesses not involved with essential public services to suspend production or have employees work from home for a week starting Monday.
The production halts include Apple supplier Foxconn, which said in a statement to CNBC its factories in the city would remain closed until notified by the government.
The city, sometimes called China’s “Silicon Valley,” has shut public transportation and begun a third city-wide round of testing. Shenzhen has reported more than 400 confirmed cases since late February.
Those numbers and case counts across China pale in comparison with other countries. But the rapid increase in cases in the last few days has local authorities rushing to control the outbreak as China seeks to maintain its zero-Covid strategy.
Shanghai, the coastal metropolis home to many foreign businesses and financial firms in China, has reverted schools to online classes. Some neighborhoods have entered lockdown and conducted mass testing, and residents typically cannot leave until results come back negative.
The city on Saturday told residents not to leave Shanghai unless absolutely necessary. More than 600 confirmed cases have been found since late February.
Jilin province in northern China reported an overnight surge this past weekend of over 1,000 new locally transmitted coronavirus cases, for a total of more than 2,900 cases this month as of Sunday.
In all, mainland China reported 1,437 new confirmed cases as of Sunday — with only 100 attributed to travelers from overseas — for a total of 8,531 domestically transmitted active cases. That’s the most since March 2020. No new deaths have been reported.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region just across the border from Shenzhen, has fought a resurgence of Covid cases in the last few weeks. The region has the highest number globally of new Covid-related deaths per million people, according to Our World in Data.
Hong Kong’s outbreak stems from the highly transmissible omicron variant, which has since spread to the mainland.
The capital city of Beijing said Sunday it identified six sources of transmission for the latest handful of municipal cases, mostly reported around the downtown and eastern parts of the city. Local authorities said anyone returning to Beijing must not attend gatherings for seven days following arrival.
For months the capital has had one of the strictest Covid control policies in the country. Travelers must show a negative Covid test taken 48 hours before entering Beijing, and take another test within 72 hours of arrival. If their 14-day travel history shows they visited a locale with a confirmed case, they are not allowed into the city.
