One picture shows how different the Covid rules are in two Chinese districts that are right next to each other.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, posted the picture to social media. On one side of the street, people are waiting in line for Covid tests, while on the other side, people are eating at a restaurant.
Dr. Huang said that the picture showed "the story of two neighborhoods in Chengdu, a city in Sichuan province."
"People from the Chenghua district (on the left) are waiting to be tested on Covid, while people from the Jinniu district (on the right) are waiting for a good meal," he wrote.
He said that there were strict lockdown rules in the Chenghua district right now because there were so many Covid cases in the area.
China Daily said that food and other services would be brought to people whose homes were along Fuqing Road and where positive cases had been found.
In some other parts of the district, one person can leave their home once a day to buy necessities.
The strict rules were supposed to last for five days, but locals say that city officials told them that the rules could be extended.
With the help of volunteers and delivery workers, food, meat, and other items were brought to people who were not allowed to leave their homes.
In another picture that was posted on Twitter, people who were locked up in Chenghua were holding small signs and reaching over a fence to try to sell food.
People on opposite sides of a key road in China, where strict lockdown rules have been brought back, live very different lives.
"Today in China, people are trying to sell vegetables outside of a locked-down area," the person who shared the picture wrote.
Chenghua is in a high-risk category, which means that people can't leave their homes until the level of risk goes down to medium.
Bloomberg said that the risk won't go down until the area has been Covid-free for a week and all of the people who live there test negative on the seventh day.
Once there have been no new infections in the area for three more days, the risk level will go back down to low.
On the Jinniu district side of the street, residents were shown sitting outside restaurants in close proximity with one another.
The stark difference in rules was an example of China’s Covid system working “very well”, chair of skin care and consumer health product company EZZ Life Science, Glenn Cross, said.
“China has introduced comprehensive systems and digital tools to assist people across the community to stay safe and reduce exposure to Covid. They utilise QR codes which provide people with colour-coded information about their exposure,” Mr Cross told news.com.au.
“In this image people on one side of the road are enjoying dining because they have not been exposed to Covid, whereas on the other side, people are queuing up for testing.
“While the image may appear to give a different perspective, it is a safe and highly effective system.”
Mr Cross said the photo displayed how China was “highly organised and efficient”.
“It is a system that is allowing people to continue with life as per normal as much as possible while also ensuring there are systems in place to manage and minimise outbreaks,” he said.
Tight border controls in place
Crisis 24 said that people who want to leave the city of Chengdu must show that they have had a negative nucleic acid test within the last 48 hours. People in the high-risk Chenghua area still have to follow orders to stay at home.
People who come to Chengdu after being in medium- or high-risk areas for seven days must spend seven days in isolation or centralised quarantine.
And anyone entering Chengdu from a low-risk area must have two negative tests within three days, while those arriving at Shuangliu International Airport (CTU) or Tianfu International Airport (TFU) must have a negative test within 48 hours.
The article said that people must wear face masks in crowded places and on public transportation.
Non-essential places, like entertainment and sports venues, are allowed to reopen in low-risk areas. To get in, you must have a negative Covid test within 48 hours.
Even though restaurants are allowed to let people eat in, officials have asked people to use takeout and delivery instead.
Security officers are said to be keeping an eye on high- and medium-risk areas by policing checkpoints to make sure no illegal activity is going on.
Covid-zero policies hurting business
The strict Covid-zero rules are also having an effect on China's economy. According to official data, manufacturing activity dropped in July.
The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), a key indicator of manufacturing activity in the world's second-largest economy, came in at 49.0 in July, down from 50.2 in June and below the 50-point line that separates growth from contraction.
Even though Covid curbs have become less frequent in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, businesses and consumers are still worried about lockdowns that happen from time to time in other parts of the country.
NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said in a statement that the manufacturing PMI fell in July because of things like the traditional slow time for production, a lack of market demand, and a drop in the health of industries that use a lot of energy.
Mr. Zhao also said that sharp changes in the prices of raw materials had caused some companies to take a "wait-and-see" approach, which made them less likely to buy.
He also said that the number of companies saying there wasn't enough market demand had gone up for four months in a row, and that this was the "main problem" for manufacturers.
But officials don't seem likely to ease up on strict pandemic controls. At a Politburo meeting this week, policymakers seemed to put more emphasis on zero-Covid than on growth. They also promised to work for "the best outcome" instead of meeting economic and social goals.
Chinese leaders had set a goal for GDP growth for the whole year of about 5.5%, but the economy only grew by 0.4% in the second quarter, so analysts don't think it will reach that goal.
China's non-manufacturing PMI also went down in July, from 54.7 to 53.8. In June, it was 54.7.
The NBS said this was because of policies meant to increase consumption and a rise in construction work.
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