Food, travel hit in locked-down Xi’an

A worker delivers food supplies to residents at a residential compound under lockdown following the Covid-19 outbreak in Xian, Shaanxi province, China.

Chinese officials admitted yesterday they have faced challenges getting enough supplies to residents in locked-down Xi’an, after the city’s inhabitants took to social media to complain they didn’t have enough food and call for help. As many as 13mn residents in northern Xi’an are in their seventh day of home confinement, and national health officials have called for measures to be strengthened further as China battles its worst virus surge in months.Beijing has followed a strict “zero Covid” strategy involving tight border restrictions and targeted lockdowns since the virus first surfaced in a central city in late 2019. But officials admitted at a press conference yesterday that “low staff attendance and difficulties in logistics and distribution” had led to trouble providing essential supplies as the country faces a resurgence in infections. A day before, many residents asked on social media for help acquiring food and other essentials, with some saying their housing compounds would not let them out even though they were running out of food.Xi’an official Chen Jianfeng told reporters that the local government has mobilised enterprises to step up community distribution, with cadres supervising wholesale markets and supermarkets. “We’re trying our best to assist in the problem of staff turnout, and are issuing passes for vehicles that guarantee the supply of necessities,” he said. But some were still struggling with supplies.“How do we live? What do we eat?” one user wrote on the Twitter-like Weibo platform. “Days ago, we could go out once to buy groceries but that’s been cancelled... all online grocery apps are either sold out or beyond the delivery range,” the user added. The city stepped up confinement measures on Monday, with many residents told not to leave their homes except for virus testing - after previously being told they could go out once every three days to buy supplies.Authorities had previously insisted that supplies remain stable as they maintain strict controls of movement into and out of Xi’an. The city has logged over 960 domestic virus cases since December 9. Authorities have also detained at least seven people in the city over attempting to skip quarantine, disrupting order and spreading rumours, local media said. The outbreak comes as Beijing prepares to welcome thousands of overseas visitors to February’s Winter Olympics.While the Xian outbreak is small compared with outbreaks in many other places around the world, officials have imposed tough curbs on travel within and leaving the city from Dec 23, in line with Beijing’s drive to immediately contain outbreaks as they appear. People in the city have not been allowed to leave town without clearance from their employer or community authorities.A 32-year-old mechanic went to Xian on a business trip and had planned to leave last week, only to find he had to stay for longer after local community officials refused to grant the certificate to clear his departure. That means he has missed his wife’s birthday and might be forced to spend the New Year in Xian. “I just want to go home,” he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.Since Monday, the Xian government has suspended granting permission to people seeking to leave their homes to buy essentials, as epidemic containment measures rose a notch. The city said in-person shopping could be resumed for people in less risky areas once mass testing returned negative results, without saying exactly when stay-at-home orders would be lifted. The measure stirred complaints on social media from some residents about the uncertain access to fresh produce. Several district-level governments in Xian have started arranging grocery deliveries to peoples’ homes, or setting up temporary booths in large residential compounds selling fresh produce, the city government said yesterday.A 23-year-old student in Xian, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said his family had received one free package of vegetables delivered to his home since the shopping restriction, and has not yet been told when the next batch will arrive. There was no choice on what was delivered, but the package included the most common groceries: “Although I do crave certain food, there is no disruption to my daily life.”Authorities started another round of city-wide testing on Wednesday, the fifth since Dec 21. The number of infections found from mass testing started to decline in the fourth round, while the numbers in the first three were elevated, a local official said yesterday.Samsung, which operates a sprawling semiconductor base in Xian, said it had decided to “temporarily adjust operations” at manufacturing facilities in the city due to the Covid-19 situation. Chinese electric vehicle company BYD Co reiterated that the virus had caused some impact, without giving a timeline on when operations may normalise. “Our production has been affected by the epidemic outbreak to some degree,” BYD told Reuters. “We are currently actively making adjustments in response.”Western Superconducting Technologies said its current production wasn’t at full capacity as it complied with government’s Covid-19 curb, while it will produce at full capacity once the Xian outbreak is under control.