China’s Hainan expands COVID-19 lockdowns to more areas to quell outbreak

At least eight cities and towns, with a combined population of around 7 million, said their residents must not go beyond where they live, unless for necessary reasons such as COVID-19 tests, grocery shopping or to fulfil essential job roles.

They suspended various public transport services.

The measures will stay in place for varying periods, with the shortest scheduled for a few hours, state media reports show.

Around 25,000 tourists were stranded in Sanya, the hardest-hit city in Hainan’s outbreak and the island’s key tourist hub, as of Sunday. Although cities have said tourists can leave after COVID-19 tests, many were frustrated about the disruption to their plans.

In Qionghai city, scheduled to be locked down for three days, all flights at the Qionghai Boao Airport scheduled on Monday were cancelled on “public security reasons”.

SHARES FALL

Chinese stocks in tourism, transport , and consumer staples all retreated on Monday morning, with China Tourism Group Duty Free Corp down about 5 per cent after Sanya began closing duty-free malls on Aug 5.

The lockdowns in several cities on the tropical island dashed hopes for a quick rebound for the country’s ailing aviation sector, which had counted on a summer travel boom to help trim record losses.

Hainan Airlines fell 1.5 per cent on Monday morning, hovering around their lowest level since February last year, when the airline was in the midst of a restructuring to settle a multi-year liquidity crisis.

The airline said in July that its first half net loss is expected to be 11.95 to 12.96 billion yuan (US$1.77 billion to US$1.92 billion), even bigger than the 880.9 million yuan loss a year earlier.

Nationwide, China reported 807 locally transmitted COVID infections for Aug 7, of which were 324 symptomatic and 483 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said.

There were no new deaths, keeping the nation’s fatalities unchanged at 5,226.

As of Sunday, mainland China had confirmed 231,266 cases with symptoms, including both local patients and symptomatic international travellers.

China’s capital, Beijing, reported two new local symptomatic cases for Aug 7, while Shanghai and the southern technology hub of Shenzhen reported no new local cases.
 

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