Get 40% Off
🤯 This Tech Portfolio is up 29% YTD! Join Now to Get April’s Top PicksGet The Picks – Just 99 USD

Shanghai to Loosen Some Quarantine Measures as COVID-19 Cases Drop - Report

Published 04/27/2022, 09:40 AM
Updated 04/27/2022, 09:41 AM
© Reuters.

© Reuters.

By Geoffrey Smith

Investing.com -- The Chinese city of Shanghai is to loosen some public quarantine measures in response to falling numbers of new COVID-19 infections, the English language state-owned Global Times said on Wednesday.

It called the move a big step to ending the draconian restrictions on the city’s 25 million inhabitants, after a lockdown that has lasted over a month, closing factories belonging to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) and many others, and creating a massive logjam at China’s biggest port.

Official figures released Wednesday indicated that the number of new infections across the city fell 20%, a fourth straight daily drop.

The Global Times cited Zhao Dandan, a deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, as telling a press briefing that 51 million tests were conducted in the past five days and that the incidence of positive cases has been gradually dropping. The rate of new infections across the city had peaked in the second week of April.

The news comes as Beijing, the capital, and Hangzhou, another important manufacturing center and port city 110 miles (177 kilometers) southwest of Shanghai, begin mass testing to clamp down on incipient COVID-19 outbreaks of their own.

A spate of COVID-19 outbreaks across China has badly hit economic activity in the last two months, with retail sales falling 3.5% on the year in March and the Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers index falling below the 50 level that typically separates growth from contraction.

If lockdowns persist through the end of the month, they could take around 1.4 percentage points off China’s gross domestic product growth this year, dragging it below 4%, according to a research note by Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific with Natixis.

Latest comments

Risk Disclosure: Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
Before deciding to trade in financial instrument or cryptocurrencies you should be fully informed of the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite, and seek professional advice where needed.
Fusion Media would like to remind you that the data contained in this website is not necessarily real-time nor accurate. The data and prices on the website are not necessarily provided by any market or exchange, but may be provided by market makers, and so prices may not be accurate and may differ from the actual price at any given market, meaning prices are indicative and not appropriate for trading purposes. Fusion Media and any provider of the data contained in this website will not accept liability for any loss or damage as a result of your trading, or your reliance on the information contained within this website.
It is prohibited to use, store, reproduce, display, modify, transmit or distribute the data contained in this website without the explicit prior written permission of Fusion Media and/or the data provider. All intellectual property rights are reserved by the providers and/or the exchange providing the data contained in this website.
Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.
© 2007-2024 - Fusion Media Limited. All Rights Reserved.