As Beijing’s Covid-19 outbreak drags on, the country’s top official overseeing pandemic control has shifted her attention from Shanghai’s ebbing crisis to the capital, raising pressure on local authorities to contain spread and potentially signaling harsher curbs to come.
Sun Chunlan, China’s Vice Premier and health czar whose appearance at virus hotspots across the country reflects the central government’s priorities, on Monday urged officials in Beijing to eradicate community spread more swiftly and implement more thorough measures adhering to the Covid Zero approach. She inspected the latest areas hit by the virus, including regions in the Haidian district that house China’s top universities, according to state media reports.
Sun’s trip to Beijing, after being based in Shanghai for the past month, is a sign the government is losing patience with the outbreak. The capital reported 48 cases for Monday, down from 99 on Sunday, which was the highest daily tally of the current outbreak. While the numbers are still small, the city has been recording dozens of cases a day for almost a month, suggesting that mass-testing drives and a variety of measures such as work-from-home orders in some districts haven’t been enough to stamp out the spread.
The inability to eliminate Beijing’s outbreak underscores the challenges of China’s strict Covid Zero approach, with the unprecedented shutdown of Shanghai providing a cautionary tale of how early mistakes could lead to rapid spread....
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