Beijing on high alert as China's first Omicron cluster edges closer weeks before the Olympics

But the virus has already spread far outside the city. State media reported Monday that two more Omicron cases had been identified in Anyang city, Henan province, more than 300 miles from Tianjin.

Genome sequencing of the virus found that it belongs to the same transmission chain as the Tianjin outbreak, according to Henan health authorities. A university student who returned to Anyang from Tianjin on December 28 is believed to have brought back the virus -- suggesting the variant has already been spreading in Tianjin for nearly two weeks, at the least.
That is particularly worrying news to officials in Beijing, which is fewer than 30 minutes away from Tianjin by high-speed rail.

"It is impossible for China to return cases to zero before the Winter Olympics, because local outbreaks are springing up one after another," said Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong.

Journaliste indépendante, Jiang Xue a publié une enquête intitulée « 10 jours à Xi’an » sur le réseau social WeChat. Selon elle, les services postaux sont à l’arrêt depuis le 21 décembre tandis que la population de la ville se retrouve même dans l’incapacité de commander des aliments en ligne.  
 
Parmi les habitants de Xi’an, la peur est aussi celle d’être envoyés dans des centres de quarantaine dans le cas d’un test positif. Dans le cas où un seul résident est testé positif, tous ses voisins risquent de connaître le même sort.
 
C’est ainsi que la population de la ville en est réduite à vivre au jour le jour, sans savoir de quoi sera fait le lendemain. « Il n’y a qu’une seule victoire pour Xi’an, voilà la rhétorique officielle, mais tout ceci n’est que du bavardage vide de sens, écrit Jiang Xue.  
 
De la même façon, le slogan « Nous ferons tout quel qu’en soit le prix » peut sembler extraordinaire, mais quand il s’agit des personnes individuelles, nous devons analyser ce que veut dire en réalité « quel qu’en soit le prix ». »

D’autres témoignages ont fait surface à Xi’an. Ainsi ceux de deux femmes enceintes qui ont perdu leur bébé du fait des retards dans leur prise en charge provoqués par les restrictions imposées par les autorités de la ville.  
 
Sur un post déposé sur le réseau social Weibo, dont fait état le quotidien de Hong Kong, la nièce d’une femme enceinte affirme que cette dernière a perdu son bébé par une fausse couche après avoir été ainsi refusée dans un hôpital. Le post comporte une vidéo, rapidement supprimée, qui montre la femme enceinte au huitième mois assise devant l’entrée de l’hôpital avec du sang qui coule le long de ses jambes.  
 
Elle a été laissée sans soins devant l’hôpital pendant deux heures samedi dernier car le résultat de son test avait expiré quatre heures auparavant. Ce mercredi 5 janvier, la Fédération des femmes de la province du Shaanxi a ouvert une enquête.
 
« Des personnels médicaux l’avaient finalement envoyée dans une salle d’opération après avoir vu le sang qui se répandait en abondance sur ses jambes. L’enfant est mort dans la matrice de sa mère après huit mois de grossesse simplement du fait de traitements trop tardifs », avait déclaré sa nièce.  
 
Mercredi, les autorités de Xian ont dit que les hôpitaux devaient dorénavant donner des soins aux femmes enceintes et aux autres personnes atteintes de maladies critiques qu’elles soient munies ou non de résultats négatifs. « Ma tante me demandait sans cesse d’une voix faible de rafraîchir ses informations, témoignant sur son téléphone de sa détresse », ajoutait encore sa nièce mardi dernier. Ce post a été vu plusieurs millions de fois jusqu’à ce qu’il soit supprimé mercredi matin, explique le South China Morning Post.  
 
Ce jeudi 6 janvier, les responsables de l’hôpital se sont excusés publiquement, sous la pression des autorités qui ont licencié une partie de la direction de l’établissement.
 
Une autre femme enceinte a, elle aussi, déclaré mercredi sur Weibo avoir été refusée dans plusieurs hôpitaux le 29 décembre alors qu’elle saignait abondamment. Cette femme, identifiée sous le nom de Wang, un nom de famille très répandu en Chine, a expliqué qu’elle avait fini par être admise dans un hôpital en fin de journée après un résultat négatif eu Covid-19. Mais son bébé était alors déjà mort.
« Je pouvais seulement sentir que je saignais abondamment sans arrêt et je tremblais et versais des larmes dans état de confusion totale, a-t-elle témoigné. Lorsqu’un médecins s’est finalement penché sur mon cas, il m’a demandé pourquoi je me présentais si tardivement mais je ne pouvais plus trouver de réponse. Je déteste ce Covid-19 et je comprends les difficultés pour le combattre. Mais je n’ai jamais compris pourquoi il m’était impossible de joindre au téléphone le centre de prise en charge. »

Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’

Leading British and US scientists thought it was likely that Covid accidentally leaked from a laboratory but were concerned that further debate would harm science in China, emails show.
 
An email from Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, on February 2 2020 said that “a likely explanation” was that Covid had rapidly evolved from a Sars-like virus inside human tissue in a low-security lab.
 
The email, to Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins of the US National Institutes of Health, went on to say that such evolution may have “accidentally created a virus primed for rapid transmission between humans”.
 
But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.

In the emails, Sir Jeremy said that other scientists also believed the virus could not have evolved naturally. One such scientist was Professor Mike Farzan, of Scripps Research, the expert who discovered how the original Sars virus binds to human cells.
 
Scientists were particularly concerned by a part of Covid-19 called the furin cleavage site, a section of the spike protein which helps it enter cells and makes it so infectious to humans.
 
Summarising Professor Farzan’s concerns in an email, Sir Jeremy said: “He is bothered by the furin site and has a hard time (to) explain that as an event outside the lab, though there are possible ways in nature but highly unlikely.
 
“I think this becomes a question of how do you put all this together, whether you believe in this series of coincidences, what you know of the lab in Wuhan, how much could be in nature - accidental release or natural event? I am 70:30 or 60:40.”
 
Later emails showed that by February 4, Sir Jeremy had revised his estimate of a laboratory leak to 50:50, while Professor Eddie Holmes, of the University of Sydney, gave a 60:40 estimate in favour of an accidental release.
 
The emails also show that Bob Garry, of the University of Texas, was unconvinced that Covid-19 emerged naturally.
 
“I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” he said.
 
Professor Andrew Rambaut, from the University of Edinburgh, also said that furin cleavage site “strikes me as unusual”.  
 
He added: “I think the only people with sufficient information or access to samples to address it would be the teams working in Wuhan.”

@francetvchine
 
#Chine #covid19 1.16 million d'habitants dans la ville #Hua près d'#Anyang, #Henan en confinement à partir d'aujourd'hui. 1 membre d’une famille a droit de sortie pour faire les courses seulement 1 fois tous les 2 jours  
@arnauldmiguet @GaelC21 @Charlie_Wang6

China Covid-19 Lockdowns Hit Factories, Ports in Latest Knock to Supply Chains
Toyota, Samsung and Volkswagen are among companies with production affected as economists warn of more challenging bottlenecks ahead

Already, companies including memory-chip maker Samsung Electronics Co., German auto maker Volkswagen AG and a textiles company that supplies Nike Inc. and Adidas AG are suffering production hitches.

The world’s third-busiest container port of Ningbo-Zhoushan, near Shanghai, risks worsening backlogs from restrictions on trucks and warehouse operations after more than two dozen Covid-19 cases were confirmed in the surrounding area.

“The risk posed by the Omicron variant is that we could take a huge step back in terms of supply-chain bottlenecks,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian Economics Research at HSBC. “This time, the situation could be even more challenging than last year given China’s increasingly significant role in global supply.”
 
Several economists said China may escalate its containment policy and some have touted the possibility of a nationwide lockdown, unseen since April 2020. Goldman Sachs on Tuesday cut China’s 2022 growth forecast to 4.3% from 4.8% in light of the latest Covid-19 developments.

Toyota Motor Corp. said operations on Monday and Tuesday at its joint-venture factory in Tianjin came to a halt because of mass testing requirements imposed across the city. About 14 million residents in Tianjin, an industrial hub in northeastern China that accounts for 1.7% of China’s exports, were tested after two cases of the Omicron variant were detected.
 
A Volkswagen plant based in the city was also closed, Stephan Wöllenstein, the auto maker’s China chief executive, said Tuesday. The German car maker recently also closed a plant in Ningbo, a port city in eastern China, after another small Covid-19 outbreak, he said.

Two of the world’s largest memory-chip makers have experienced problems in Xi’an, a central Chinese city where the local government put in place strict pandemic restrictions starting Dec. 23. South Korea-based Samsung Electronics is having trouble getting enough employees where they are needed because of the city’s restrictions on residents leaving home, according to people familiar with the matter. That might cause a slight decline in output in the short term, they said.

U.S.-based Micron Technology Inc. said in late December the lockdown in Xi’an had reduced its workforce at its site in the city, affecting output of its DRAM memory-chip products.
 
In Ningbo, Shenzhou International Group, a supplier to global sports brands including Nike, Adidas and Fast Retailing Co. ’s Uniqlo, said some production sites were locked down from Jan. 3 after 10 cases were detected in Ningbo’s Beilun district. As of Monday, part of the production has resumed operations, it said.
 
Employees of Foxconn Technology Group, a supplier to Apple Inc., and Huawei Technologies Co. were among workers who took Covid-19 tests in southern Shenzhen, according to the companies.

“Don’t take your personal laptop to China”
The Belgian Interfederal Olympic Committee has recommended that all Belgian athletes travelling to the Beijing Olympics leave personal laptops and smartphones at home. The BOIC’s Mathias Van Baelen says the organisation if preferring to play safe.  The Dutch Olympic team is receiving similar advice.