Global Courant
BEIJING – Over the past two weeks, event organizer Jane Fu has had to cancel or reschedule at least half a dozen work meetings due to Covid-19.
The 36-year-old — along with two of her four employees and a handful of business contacts — has been caught up in the recent wave of recontamination sweeping through Beijing.
Companies in the Chinese capital must now figure out what to do with sick employees, in the absence of official rules.
One in three Beijing companies reported workers sickened by Covid-19 in May, according to data monitor China Beige Book, the highest number of any major Chinese city.
While this was not severe enough to disrupt economic performance, experts believe the current surge will peak in the coming weeks.
Speaking at a conference in late May, top respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan said modeling has shown that the current surge is likely to peak at about 65 million cases per week by mid-June. By comparison, health officials said visits to fever clinics peaked at 2.867 million a day on Dec. 23, but this did not reflect actual infections as tests failed to keep up with infection rates.
“It won’t be gone once and for all,” Dr Zhong said at the conference, acknowledging that the disease cannot be completely eradicated.
The Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control said Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19, has been the most reported virus in the city for five consecutive weeks, but did not provide a breakdown of the number of Covid-19. fallen.
China has stopped issuing daily updates since it decided in December 2022 to treat the virus as endemic, just like the common flu.
It is a reversal from the government’s previous zero-Covid policy, which employed mass testing, strict quarantines and flash lockdowns in an effort to eradicate the virus.
The government’s sudden dismantling of the policy led to the virus sweeping across the country, with hospitals and crematoriums overwhelmed.
Six months later, the herd immunity acquired by that surge is waning.
Increased travel and the lifting of indoor mask mandates, coupled with the highly contagious XBB variant, are making more and more people sick.
With most back to office work, there have been debates on social media over whether those infected with Covid-19 should apply for medical leave as many have fairly mild symptoms.
While official guidelines say companies must provide paid leave to infected employees, not every employer enforces this as these are guidelines only and do not carry any sanctions.
