Subway passenger traffic in Shanghai is quickly returning to levels seen before the latest Covid wave, according to Wind data. Pictured here is a subway car in the city on January 4, 2023.
Hugo Hu Getty Images News | Getty Images
BEIJING – China will be able to survive Covid-19 by the end of March, based on how quickly people get back on the streets, said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie.
Rail and road data show traffic in major cities is picking up again, he said, indicating the latest wave of Covid has passed.
“The dramatic U-turn in China’s Covid policy since mid-November indicates a deeper short-term economic contraction but a faster reopening and recovery,” Hu said in a report on Wednesday. “The economy could see a strong recovery in the spring.”
In the past few days, the southern city of Guangzhou and tourist destination Sanya have said they have passed the peak of the Covid wave.
Chongqing municipal health authorities said on Tuesday that daily visitors to the main fever clinic were just over 3,000 – a sharp drop from December 16 when the number of patients admitted exceeded 30,000. This province-level area has a population of about 32 million people.
Chongqing was the most congested city in mainland China during Thursday morning’s rush hour, according to Baidu’s traffic data. The figures show increased traffic from a week ago in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other major cities.
As of Wednesday, train ridership in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou had risen sharply from the past few weeks — but only recovered to about two-thirds of last year’s level, according to Wind Information.
Caixin’s monthly survey of service businesses in December found they were the most optimistic in a year and a half, according to a Thursday release. A seasonally adjusted index of business activity rose to 48 in December, from a six-month low of 46.7 in November.
A reading below -50 still indicates a contraction in business activity. The index for a separate Caixin survey of manufacturers edged down to 49 in December, from 49.4 in November. His optimism was the highest it had been in ten months.
Poorer, rural areas are next
Shanghai medical researchers predicted in a study that the latest wave of Covid will pass through China’s major cities by the end of 2022, while rural areas – and more remote provinces in central and western China – will be infected by mid-to-late January. .
“The duration and magnitude of the coming outbreak could be dramatically increased by extensive travel during the Spring Festival (January 21, 2023),” the researchers said in a paper published in late December by Frontiers of Medicine, a journal sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Health. Education.
Usually hundreds of millions of people travel during the holiday, also known as Lunar New Year.
Researchers say senior citizens, especially those with underlying health conditions, in remote areas of China are at increased risk of severe disease from the transmissible omicron variant. The author is particularly concerned about the lack of medicine and intensive care units in rural areas.
Even before the pandemic, China’s public health system was lagging behind. People from all over the country often travel to the crowded hospitals in the capital Beijing to get better health care than in their hometowns.
Oxford Economics senior economist Louise Loo remains cautious about the rapid rebound in China’s economy.
“The normalization of economic activity will take some time, which will require a change in the public perception of the Covid contract and the effectiveness of the vaccine,” Loo said in a report on Wednesday.
The company expects China’s GDP to grow by 4.2% in 2023.
Long-term risk
Medical researchers also warned of the risk that the omicron outbreak on the mainland “may appear in several waves,” with new infections likely to occur by the end of 2023. It will not be estimated in the coming months and years.”
However, amid a lack of timely information, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday it was asking China for “faster, regular, reliable data on hospitalizations and deaths, as well as more complete and real virus sequences.”
China in early December abruptly ended many of its strict Covid controls that limited business and social activities. On Sunday, the country will officially end quarantine requirements for incoming travelers, while restoring the ability of Chinese citizens to travel abroad for leisure. The country has imposed strict border controls since March 2020 in an effort to contain Covid inside.