The city that never slips: Beijing and covid
The Intelligence from The Economist
The Economist
4.5 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
China’s Communist Party leaders have painted themselves into a corner: they cannot be seen to put the capital into lockdown, but permitting covid to spread could be catastrophic. We look into the myriad reasons behind America’s sharp shortages of baby formula, and how to solve them. And why it is illegal for women to get a manicure in Turkmenistan.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. |
| 0:06.7 | In London, I'm Jason Palmer. |
| 0:08.9 | And in New York, I'm John Fassman. |
| 0:11.4 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 0:17.7 | This week, America has been forced to import baby formula from Switzerland. |
| 0:22.5 | We ask why the shortage has become so dire, and there's far more to it than the usual |
| 0:27.0 | story of gummed up supply chains. |
| 0:32.0 | And Turkmenistan's rulers have long had a pension for micromanaging their citizens' lives. |
| 0:37.1 | The new president's latest obsession? |
| 0:39.6 | Cosmetics surgery? |
| 0:41.3 | Laws banning Botox injections, nail extensions, and other such procedures are intrusively enforced. |
| 0:55.8 | China reported 174 official new COVID cases on Sunday. |
| 1:08.8 | 96 of them were in the capital, Beijing. |
| 1:12.3 | Their small numbers to anyone but communist party leaders who are sticking resolutely to |
| 1:17.1 | zero COVID policies. |
| 1:19.3 | In Shanghai, that's meant a stark two-month lockdown. |
| 1:23.3 | Last, there are signs that numbers there are declining. |
| 1:36.0 | Official figures suggest infections in the city have been below a thousand for eight consecutive |
| 1:40.5 | days. |
| 1:47.2 | In Beijing, though, the trend line has been upward. |
| 1:50.7 | In other, less important Chinese cities, the response would be has been certain and swift. |
| 1:57.2 | Quarantines of the infected clearing out of buildings, harsh lockdowns. |
... |
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