- Young couples and some families often get together to spend the holiday.
- The omicron variant is on the rise after restrictions ended.
- A large Christmas market is usually held in Shanghai in a high-end shopping area.
The omicron variant is on the rise, weeks after the government suddenly ended its “zero-Covid” policy, which had strict testing requirements and limited travel. Authorities in Shanghai asked people to stay home this weekend so that Christmas wouldn’t be too crazy in the country’s most populated city. This is because Covid-19 is still going strong across the country after strict restrictions were lifted.
Saturday, a part of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission told young people in particular to stay away from crowded places because the coronavirus is easy to spread and the weather is cold.
Christmas isn’t usually celebrated in China, but young couples and some families often get together to spend the holiday.
The omicron variant is on the rise a few weeks after the government abruptly ended its “zero-Covid” policy. They did this by removing strict testing requirements and travel restrictions. China is the last major country to start getting used to living with the virus.
Even though many people liked the change, families and the health care system were not ready for the increase in infections that followed. Hospitals are rushing to get beds, blood, and medicine, and the government is rushing to build clinics.
A large Christmas market is usually held in Shanghai in a high-end shopping area along Nanjing West Road. Restaurants and stores offer deals to get people in the door.
But the spread of omicron is putting a damper on the party.
Jacqueline Mocatta, who works in the hospitality industry, said that many restaurants in Shanghai have cancelled Christmas parties for regulars and that hotels have stopped taking reservations because they don’t have enough staff.
“Given the number of people on our team and the fact that most of them are sick right now, we can only take a certain number of customers,” she said.
People complained on social media that they will have to stay inside because most of their friends have tested positive for Covid.
Someone wrote on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, “I had planned to go to Shanghai for Christmas, but now I can only lie in bed.”
Infections in China are probably more than a million a day, and more than 5,000 people die every day, which is “in stark contrast” to what the government says. This was said by the British health data firm Airfinity this week.
On Saturday, China’s national health authority said there were 4,128 cases of Covid-19 infections with symptoms, but no deaths for the fourth day in a row.
Bloomberg News said on Friday that the government’s top health authority said that nearly 37 million people may have been infected with Covid on a single day last week.
A local news source said on Saturday that the emergency hotline in Taiyuan, which is in the northern province of Shanxi, was getting more than 4,000 calls a day.
Authorities in Taiyuan told people to only call the number for medical emergencies. They said that giving advice about Covid “is not in the scope of the hotline.”
On Friday, the news said that a health official in the port city of Qingdao said that there were about 500,000 new infections every day.
The media said on Friday that there were only 4,000 units of blood in Wuhan, which is the central city where Covid first appeared three years ago. This is enough blood to last two days. People were asked to “roll up their sleeves and give blood” by the repository.
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