CX Daily: After China’s Covid U-Turn, A ‘Tsunami’ Of Infected Strip Bare Pharmacy Shelves

Hong Kong intends to start reopening its borders with the Chinese mainland in weeks. The surge of Covid-19 across the country is preventing exporters from delivering orders on time

Covid-19 /

Cover Story: After China’s Covid U-turn, a ‘tsunami’ of infected strip bare pharmacy shelves

In early December, shelves in pharmacies across China quickly emptied as people scrambled to stock up medicines, according to media reports, social media posts and interviews with ordinary citizens conducted by Caixin. Many have had to wait hours in line to get strictly rationed amounts of medicines, while orders placed online are taking weeks to deliver.

“My dad had high fever for two days and had to rely on drinking hot water” to soothe his symptoms, said a resident in Liangyugang city in Jiangsu, whose entire family was infected.

The cause of the shortfall can be linked to the pandemic, but not for the reasons one might expect.

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FINANCE & ECONOMY

Liu Shouying, dean of the School of Economics at Renmin University, said China must shift away from the “wartime system” employed to combat Covid. Photo: VCG

Economy /

China’s economy won’t get back to normal until ‘wartime’ Covid controls end, expert says

China has reached a tipping point where it is impossible for the market to survive without shifting away from its “wartime” anti-pandemic regime and returning the economy to normalcy, according to a senior Chinese economist.

“The system formed to fight the pandemic over the past three years, to a large extent, represented a return of the administrative system of governance and withdrawal from the market-oriented system,” Liu Shouying, dean of the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, said at the annual meeting of the China Wealth Management 50 Forum Friday.

Hong Kong /

Hong Kong plans to reopen border with mainland in weeks

Hong Kong intends to start reopening its borders with the Chinese mainland before mid-January, aiming at returning to pre-Covid cross-border travel arrangements, the city’s leader said.

The borders will “open fully in a gradual, orderly way,” Chief Executive John Lee said during a press briefing at the city’s airport Saturday on returning from a trip to Beijing, where he met President Xi Jinping.

Quick hits /

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BUSINESS & TECH

A worker assembles a vehicle Tuesday at a factory in Qingdao, East China’s Shandong province. Photo: VCG

Exporters /

Surging Covid infections delay Chinese exporters’ deliveries

The surge of Covid-19 across China is preventing exporters from delivering orders on time because their workers are falling sick.

The missed deadlines show how China’s Covid policy is again disrupting foreign trade, this time due to illnesses rather than lockdowns and other restrictions.

Exporter Bilateral Trade Asia America Ltd. had been scheduled to send out two containers worth of goods to overseas customers on Dec. 23, but had to postpone delivery because seven suppliers did not deliver their own products on time due to local Covid outbreaks, said the company’s manager, Xu Fangpeng.

Gaming /

Tencent limits minors’ gaming time to three hours over New Year’s weekend

Chinese teens stuck inside for the three-day New Year holiday as Covid rips across the country might have hoped to fill the time with a few solid hours of blockbuster mobile game Honor of Kings.

No such luck. In a notice released at the weekend, Tencent Holdings Ltd. video game subsidiary Tencent Games said gamers under 18 years old will only be allowed to play the firm’s titles from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., Dec. 30 to Jan. 2.

Quick hits /

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Long Read /

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GALLERY

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