A Covid outbreak in Beijing prompts panic buying and fear of a lockdown.
Families in Beijing rushed to stock up on food. Supermarkets stayed open late. Residents endured long lines for mandatory testing. China’s stock markets plunged.
A fresh coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing could become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. The central government has leaned heavily on lockdowns despite their high social and economic costs, in pursuit of the Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s “zero Covid” strategy of eliminating infections.
On Monday, the Beijing government said that...