Beijing - (AFP) - China announced on Saturday that it had recorded the largest daily death toll from Covid-19 since May, with millions of people imposing closures at the end of the week, in light of the authorities' adherence to the "zero Covid" policy.

China, which is still resorting to imposing closures, prolonged quarantine periods, and large-scale examination campaigns, is the only one among the major economic powers that is still seeking to eliminate the outbreak, despite the dire consequences of this approach on the economy.

And China announced that it had recorded 450 local injuries on Saturday, the day after it recorded 432 injuries. The majority of injuries are without symptoms.
The increase in infections led to the imposition of new restrictions this week in several parts of the country.

And the authorities of Lanzhou, the capital of the northwestern province of Gansu, ordered its 4.4 million residents to stay in their homes as of Wednesday, and on Friday a closure was imposed in an area within the scope of Anhui Province.

On Saturday, the authorities of the city of Beihai, located within the Guangxi province, announced the imposition of closures in two regions with a population of more than 800,000 people.

"Currently, the epidemic prevention and control situation in Beihai City is severe and complex, and the risk of hidden spread in the community is relatively high," said a note in which the government announced the restrictions.

This week, Wugang, a steel manufacturing hub in the central province of Henan, imposed a three-day lockdown after one positive case of COVID-19 was reported.

The accelerating outbreak of the Omicron variant poses a major challenge to the Chinese authorities seeking to limit the economic damage caused by the restrictions imposed to contain the Covid outbreak.

China recorded the slowest growth rate for the second quarter since the massive outbreak of Covid, with GDP growth limited to 0.4 percent on an annual basis.