China’s official paper says Covid control measures will keep going

On Monday, the official Communist Party newspaper for the Chinese capital, Cai Qi, said that Beijing will resolutely implement Covid 19 pandemic control measures and uphold the 'zero-Covid' policy to prevent imported cases from coming in and domestic cases from rebounding. The reference to the next five years by Cai, who is a close ally of Chinese President Xi Jinping, has caused a huge backlash on Chinese social media. The line was removed from Beijing Daily, describing it as an editing error, while leaving his other remarks about pandemic controls intact.

The whole speech was reviewed by CNN and Cai, although the quote from Beijing Daily was misleading, discussed the possibility of zero-Covid policies in place in the capital over the next five-year period.

The pandemic controls that would remain in place include routine PCR tests, strict entry rules, regular health checks in residential neighborhoods and public venues, as well as rigorous monitoring and testing for people entering and leaving Beijing, state media quoted Cai as saying.

One user wrote on Weibo, China's Twitter-like platform that I need to rethink whether I should stay in Beijing in the long term. The next five years are going to be a good time. What is the point of being alive, another user said. Weibo removed the hashtag from its platform for the next five years. In early May, Xi doubled down on Zero-Covid policy after calling China's Internet unsustainable, and ordering officials and all sectors of society to adhere to the decisions and plans of the leadership, according to a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, the country's top decision-making body. The US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said in an online Brookings Institution event on June 16 that he expects China to keep its zero-Covid policy in place until the beginning of 2023, based on signals from the Chinese government. For months, cities across China including Beijing and Shanghai have been placed under full or partial lockdown because of the strict zero-Covid policy, which has wreaking havoc on economic activity and hurting the job market. In May, the unemployment rate for people aged 16 -- 24 hit a new record high of 18.4%. China is shut down of cities and communities over a handful of cases of Covid. All positive cases and close contacts are sent to the government's quarantine. On Sunday, China reported 23 locally transmitted Covid 19 cases nationwide, with Beijing and Shanghai each recording four cases, according to the country's National Health Commission.