Covid-19 is still a mystery

South Korea lifted most of its Covid-19 prevention measures on April 18, representing a long step towards returning to normal life. Restaurants and businesses no longer have to close before midnight and the ban on gatherings of more than 10 people is lifted. However, people entering the country who have not been vaccinated are still subject to mandatory isolation.

The number of new Covid-19 cases in South Korea on April 18 stopped at more than 47,700 cases, the lowest since February 9. The country used to see more than 620,000 cases/day in mid-March, but thanks to the full vaccine coverage of nearly 87% of the population of 52 million, South Korea still managed to control the number of deaths and critical cases. .

Companies are also gradually welcoming employees back to work – according to Reuters. Most employees of steel giant POSCO returned to work last month, while LG Electronics reduced the proportion of employees working from home from 50% to 30%.

People in the capital Seoul – South Korea watch cherry blossoms bloom on April 9 Photo: REUTERS

On the same day, April 18, the Pacific Explorer cruise ship docked in Sydney, Australia, marking the first time this port has received tourist boats again after more than two years of imposing a ban.

Although many countries have loosened epidemic prevention measures, the World Health Organization (WHO) still asserts that it is still a long time before Covid-19 becomes a common disease. The director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, Michael Ryan, on April 14 reminded that Covid-19 still has a very large epidemic potential.

A few days after the WHO warning, India on April 18 announced that the number of daily Covid-19 cases had nearly doubled, to 2,183 cases, the first time this month. The southern state of Kerala alone, according to Reuters, reported a jump in the number of deaths, accounting for 151/214 new deaths in the country.

In China, Shanghai City recorded 3 deaths on April 17, all 3 people aged 89-91 and all had underlying diseases. These are the first deaths of the current outbreak as well as in more than a year in China, bringing the total number of deaths to 4,641, according to AP.

On April 18, China announced that it had recorded 23,362 new patients in the previous 24 hours. Since last weekend, the western city of Xi’an began a partial lockdown for four days, while the central city of Zhengzhou closed the airport for two weeks and conducted extensive testing. The Wenzhou city government even offered a reward of 50,000 yuan to find out who made a false medical report, according to the news site. The Paper.

China’s economic growth in the first quarter of 2022 reached 4.8% – higher than the forecast of 4.4% – but not so that experts are less concerned, according to radio station. Al Jazeera. Even, they fear there will be a deep recession due to China’s “no Covid-19” policy and the war in Ukraine.

While China’s industrial output rose 5% in March (year-on-year), retail sales fell 3.5%. “The worst is yet to come. January-February activity was stronger than expected, but we already saw the impact of the blockade measures on retail sales in March” – Mr. Carlos Casanova, senior economist High of UBP Bank, told Al Jazeera.

According to Gavekal Investment Research Company, out of the 100 largest cities in terms of economic scale of China, 87 are under epidemic prevention and control restrictions with an increasingly tightening trend. This has many economists worried that China will not be able to achieve its 5.5% growth target for the whole year.

Investors’ anxiety was also reflected in the mixed reaction of Asian markets after China released new economic data.