BEIJING – China reported another record high Covid-19 infections on Monday, after an extraordinary weekend of protests across the country over restrictive coronavirus curbs in scenes unprecedented since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago.

Covid-19 cases in China’s capital Beijing remained elevated, after almost doubling at the weekend.

The ongoing outbreak comes as officials enact a web of restrictions to try and prevent Beijingers from moving around. Anxiety in the city – China’s political heart – is running high amid concern a full lockdown may be imposed, especially given the current unrest.

Residents in Beijing were filmed on Friday defying officials who demanded they enter compulsory isolation, the rule for all Covid-19 cases in China.

In the early hours of Monday, one group chanted, “We don’t want Covid tests! We want freedom!” while brandishing blank white pieces of paper that have become a symbol of protests in China in recent days.

Cars joined in the fanfare by honking their horns and giving thumbs up to protesters.

The protesters were trailed by dozens of uniformed police officers, with plain-clothes security personnel in among the crowd and police cars moving along nearby.

Protests against the virus regime snowballed across China through Saturday and Sunday, with demonstrators gathering from the streets of Shanghai and a college campus in Nanjing, to the remote north-west Xinjiang region.

In Shanghai, demonstrators and police clashed on Sunday, with police taking away a busload of protesters.

During the weekend, protesters in cities, including Wuhan and Lanzhou, overturned Covid-19 testing facilities, while students gathered on campuses across China.

Xinjiang became the trigger for the discontent after virus restrictions were blamed for hampering rescue efforts in a deadly fire in the regional capital Urumqi on Thursday.

Crowds in Urumqi took to the street on Friday evening, chanting, “End the lockdown!”, according to unverified videos on social media.

Record case levels across China are making it near impossible for the authorities to deploy the more targeted restrictions laid out in a 20-point playbook handed down by Beijing just over a fortnight ago.

Instead, they are locking down quietly and more covertly, and continuing to mass test people to track cases.

China saw a fifth straight daily record of 40,347 new Covid-19 infections for Sunday, of which 3,822 were symptomatic and 36,525 were asymptomatic, the National Health Commission said on Monday.

The fastest-growing outbreaks in China right now are in Beijing, Chongqing and Jilin province.

Across China, from the southern technology hub of Shenzhen to Beijing in the north, the local authorities have responded with a mesh of restrictions to rein in cases.

In a front-page commentary in the People’s Daily newspaper on Monday, the Communist Party mouthpiece called for more effective implementation of the latest Covid-19 policies to rapidly curb the spread of the virus.

China’s official figures report symptomatic and asymptomatic Covid-19 patients separately, which can lead to inflated numbers when people are reclassified after developing symptoms. Bloomberg’s tally counts all local cases, regardless of symptoms, and removes the double-counting issue.

Health authorities in Shenzhen on Sunday tightened restrictions on public spaces as infections continue to climb. Restaurants were ordered to limit customers to no more than 50 per cent of the venue’s capacity, while places including cinemas, libraries and art galleries are also subject to the limit.

In Shanghai, which reported 144 new local Covid-19 cases for Sunday, people will need a negative PCR test within the past 48 hours before entering restaurants, bars, malls, supermarkets, beauty salons and other places of business from Nov. 29.

A five-day lockdown in Zhengzhou, home to Apple’s largest iPhone manufacturing site, started on Friday. The order came after hundreds of workers at the plant known as “iPhone city” clashed with security personnel as tensions boiled over following almost a month under tough restrictions. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG