Xi, top officials to meet this week to plan China’s Covid-19 recovery: Report

BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping, his ruling Politburo and senior government officials will meet over the coming days to plan a recovery for China’s battered economy just as the nation faces a surge in Covid-19 infections.

The key annual economic policy conference takes place as virus infections spike in the capital Beijing a week after the leadership abandoned its tough zero-Covid controls.

The policy had been championed by Mr Xi, but sparked the most extensive protests under his 10-year presidency in November.

The closed-door annual Central Economic Work Conference will run from Thursday to Friday, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

Policy insiders and business analysts are watching closely, saying the leadership is likely to chart further stimulus steps and discuss growth targets.

Economists estimate that China’s growth

has slowed to around 3 per cent this year,

far below the official target of around 5.5 per cent, marking one of the worst performances in almost half a century.

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva said a growth downgrade for China is “very likely” after a recent Covid-19 surge, news agency AFP reported on Tuesday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of “very tough” times ahead and the state media reported some seriously ill patients at hospitals in Beijing, raising fears of a wave of infections.

“It’s always very difficult for any country coming out of a situation where you’ve had very, very tight controls,” WHO spokesman Margaret Harris told a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, adding that China faced a “very tough and difficult time”.

The WHO typically refrains from commenting on individual countries’ policies, although director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus did say in May that China’s previous Covid-19 regime was not sustainable.

There were 50 severe and critical cases in hospitals in Beijing, most of whom have underlying health conditions, state news agency Xinhua reported late on Tuesday. Such numbers are small, considering China’s 1.4 billion population, but there are growing fears that hospitals could soon become flooded with cases.

Changing tack

In the three years since the pandemic erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, China has reported just 5,235 Covid-19-related deaths – a fraction of its population, and extremely low by global standards.

Its last fatalities were reported on Dec 3, before the country started the loosening of curbs.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) on Wednesday said it would stop reporting new asymptomatic Covid-19 infections, as many no longer participate in testing, making it hard to accurately tally the total count.

“Many asymptomatic people are no longer participating in nucleic acid testing, so it is impossible to accurately grasp the actual number of asymptomatic infected people,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The NHC also said it would roll out the second Covid-19 vaccine booster shots for high-risk groups and seniors over 60 years old.

Long queues outside fever clinics, buildings attached to hospitals that screen for infectious diseases in mainland China, are a common sight in Beijing and other cities in recent days.

A growing number of China’s doctors and nurses are also catching Covid-19 and some have been asked to keep working, as people showing mostly moderate symptoms throng hospitals and clinics, according to medical staff and dozens of posts on social media.

During an inspection of Beijing’s healthcare facilities, Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees China’s Covid-19 efforts, called for more fever clinics to be set up and better protection for vulnerable people, Xinhua reported.

REUTERS