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Scientists struggle to probe COVID’s origins amid sparse data from China

Scientists are anxious to obtain more data on the earliest days of the pandemic, following three tantalizing reports posted online in the past few weeks1,2,3. Although not yet published in peer-reviewed journals, the preprints provide further evidence supporting the hypothesis that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 spread from animals to people who raised, butchered or bought them. But the reports don’t reveal exactly what happened.To get more news about coronavirus in china update, you can visit shine news official website.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) will soon put out a report specifying studies that are urgently needed, says Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the WHO. A principal ask in light of the new preprints is to collect and analyse samples from farmers and wildlife at farms that supplied the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan — to which many early COVID-19 cases were traced and where coronavirus samples from January 2020 were concentrated — as well as from market vendors. The WHO made these suggestions a year ago, but the studies either haven’t been conducted or haven’t been published. The scientific community has grown frustrated with the wait as the world seeks answers to help prevent future pandemics.
Researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia who have worked closely with colleagues in China have told Nature that they’re disappointed by the slow release of information from China about COVID-19’s origins. “We are all trying to find out what the bloody hell happened, but we are hamstrung by the data available,” says Edward Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia and a co-author of two of the latest preprints2,3.

Some Chinese scientists say that they, too, would like to see more origin studies, but that the topic is politically sensitive. In March 2020, a directive from the Chinese government — highlighted by the Associated Press — instructed researchers at universities, companies and medical institutions to have all studies on COVID-19 vetted by government research units and then published under the direction of public opinion teams. Those who don’t follow procedures, the document warned, “shall be held accountable”.
Investigations of an outbreak’s origins usually take many years to reach a conclusion, if one is ever reached. But the scientific community fears that political barriers are holding this one up — and they’re unsure of the best way to expedite matters. Van Kerkhove says that SAGO will continue to outline the most pertinent studies needed, and to offer help with analyses. Until these happen, she warns that gaps in knowledge will allow damaging and scientifically unsupported theories to flourish. “If we don’t get the information we need,” Van Kerkhove says, “then there’s a space to fill, and people will fill that space with assumptions.”

In a recent example, pundits and officials in the United States and China have linked unsupported allegations about COVID-19’s origins to conspiracy theories about Ukrainian ‘biolabs’, says Yanzhong Huang, a specialist on China and global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. “All of these accusations poison the water and make an earnest search for answers to the origin of the pandemic even harder.”

Chinese authorities closed the Huanan market on 1 January 2020, after physicians in China reported that many of the people they were treating for a mysterious form of pneumonia had worked there or visited it soon before falling ill. Researchers in China leapt to investigate. On 22 January 2020, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 33 of 585 swabs taken from around the market tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and that these samples were concentrated in two aisles of stalls where wild animals were sold. “It is highly suspected that the current epidemic is related to the trade of wild animals,” the report said.

Investigators also collected samples from stray cats, mice and slabs of frozen and refrigerated seafood and meat, all of which tested negative for the virus. They continued to collect specimens for the next couple of months, but none seem to have been from wildlife sold at the Huanan market, or from farms that reared wildlife to be sold there for food, medicine or fur.

When an international team of researchers assembled by the WHO and the Chinese government set out to study the pandemic’s origins in China in late January 2021, they asked about wildlife farms supplying Wuhan’s markets. Chinese researchers handed the team a list of farms that included several in southern China. This is a region where a close relative of SARS-CoV-2 has been found in bats4, notes Peter Daszak, one of the researchers on the team and president of EcoHealth Alliance, a scientific organization in New York City that has collaborated on coronavirus research with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But the team didn’t visit the farms, and Daszak was told that they hadn’t been studied because the farms were shuttered following a ban on the consumption of wild animals in February 2020.

What’s more, he says, when the team drafted a report on its investigation, some Chinese researchers and officials with China’s foreign ministry wanted to change parts of it that discussed the sale of wild animals at the Huanan market. “We went into a room at 9:30 a.m. to talk about their changes — the rule was that any unpublished evidence had to be agreed upon,” he says. “We were there until 4:30 a.m., arguing for almost 24 hours. Some people were sleeping, some had gone home.”

Tencent revenue growth slows to a crawl following China’s crackdown on tech companies

Tencent Holdings has reported its slowest revenue growth on record, and cited China’s ongoing tech regulatory crackdown in a subsequent earnings call.To get more latest news on tencent, you can visit shine news official website.

Revenue throughout Q1 2022 reached 135.5 billion yuan, a marginal increase from 135.3 billion yuan a year ago. As such, profit for the period was 23.4 billion yuan – a 51 per cent year-on-year decrease from 47.8 billion in 2021.

Tencent’s gaming business earnings fell around 20 per cent to 10.6 billion yuan, which the company attributed to disappointing revenue from titles including PUBG Mobile, despite signs of considerable success for Krafton, of which Tencent is Krafton’s second-largest shareholder, with 15.35 per cent.

Regulated
Tencent attributed much of their decline to China’s regulatory crackdown on tech companies, including restrictions on duration of play for children. However, there are strong signs of a reversal of China’s strongarm tactics, including the recent decision to lift its games license freeze.

Although China has Martin Lau, president of Tencent, stated in an earnings call: “For this to translate to real impact on our business, there is going to be a time lag.

“It will take some time for the corrective measures to be turned into normalised regulation, and then the specific supportive measures will be introduced. We would be working closely with regulators in the hope of seeing this transition happen.”Tencent’s games revenue slowdown was not mirrored in the firm’s performance in 2021, which increased 9.9 per cent to almost 220 billion yuan.

Tencent Holdings Ltd said it will shut down a service that allowed Chinese gamers to access overseas platforms to play unapproved foreign games, in a sign of tightening compliance as Chinese regulators more closely scrutinize the industry.

The country’s largest social and gaming firm said late on Wednesday it will on May 31 update its games speed booster mobile and desktop apps to new versions that would only support games operating in China.

The new versions will no longer allow users to access foreign games.Tencent first launched the apps in 2018. Such apps, which other companies like NetEase Inc also offer, act as network acceleration tools that help users boost their internet speeds.Unlike most countries, gamers in China are only allowed to play titles approved by the government and are not allowed to play with foreigners on foreign servers. While such foreign games are not explicitly blocked by online curbs, local internet speeds are generally too slow for gamers to access them.

As such, many gamers in China used such apps in practice to access unapproved foreign games such as Grand Theft Auto or Nintendo Co Ltd’s smash-hit Animal Crossing. The apps also over the years became grey-area channels for foreign game developers to reach users in the world’s largest gaming market.

Tencent declined to provide further comment on why it had decided to make changes to the app. The move was greeted by Chinese gamers with dismay but also many said it was not surprising.This is expected given the direction things are going. It is harder to be a gamer in China by the day,” a Chinese internet user wrote on microblogging site Weibo.

The move comes days after China lifted a nine-month freeze on gaming licences. During this period gaming companies including Tencent made major adjustments to their business practices to comply with regulatory requests.

Chinese tech group Tencent reported its slowest revenue growth on record after being hit by China’s crackdown on technology companies and tough Covid-19 restrictions.To get more tencent latest news, you can visit shine news official website.

The company’s revenue was largely flat in the three months to March, while its net profit plummeted 51 per cent to Rmb23bn ($3.4bn) compared with a year ago, missing analyst estimates.

Tencent’s results come a day after China’s top economic official met dozens of executives and industry experts, pledging “support” for technology companies amid a deepening economic slump. Tencent said this was encouraging but it would take time for this to equate to concrete action.

“From the senior most level there is clear supportive signals released [for “platform economy” companies like Tencent],” Martin Lau, Tencent’s president, said on an earnings call. “For this to translate to real impact on our business there is going to be a time lag.”

While the Shanghai lockdown only officially began in late March, Tencent on Wednesday said its fintech earnings started to feel the impact of the curbs from mid-March.

James Mitchell, the company’s chief strategy officer, said the effect was particularly acute because many companies’ headquarters were in Shanghai, where advertising budget decisions were made. “Covid is hurting consumption, which is unhelpful,” he added. “We’re not exempt from that.”

“Tencent and Alibaba are fair weather stocks for China’s new economy and this is a reflection of the terrible consumer and business confidence,” said Charlie Chai, an analyst with 86Research.

Tencent, China’s most valuable company, said revenue from domestic games, a significant segment for the group, dropped 1 per cent to Rmb33bn compared with a year ago, while online advertising earnings fell 18 per cent to Rmb18bn.

“Revenues from online advertising decreased . . . reflecting weak demand from advertiser categories including education, internet services and ecommerce,” Tencent said.

The company blamed “direct and indirect effects” of the government’s move last year to restrict children to about three hours of gaming a week for the hit to domestic gaming revenues. Executives said while game approvals had restarted, they expected the pace of approvals to continue to slow.

As it faces regulatory challenges closer to home, Tencent has been looking to expand abroad over the past year and has increased its investment in foreign start-ups.

But the company said it had experienced disappointing revenue from some of its international games such as PUBG Mobile, with global gaming business earnings down 20 per cent in the quarter to Rmb10.6bn.

The value of the company’s investments in listed companies also fell to Rmb606bn at March 31 from Rmb982.8bn at the end of last year. In January the group sold a $3bn stake in Singapore-based Sea. Mitchell said rising global interest rates posed risks to some of its investments in high- growth companies and it was managing this by stepping up the rate of divestments.

Bo Pei, a tech analyst at US Tiger Securities, said Tencent missed both revenue and profit estimates for the quarter, primarily owing to economic weakness and pandemic lockdowns in China.

“Given that lockdowns started in mid-March and are still in place in some cities including Shanghai, Tencent’s second-quarter outlook is even more challenging,” he added.

The Sinopharm COVID-19 (BBIBP-CorV, COVILO) is an inactivated vaccine made of virus particles grown in culture and lacks the disease-producing capability. This vaccine was developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (Sinopharm) and the Beijing Institute of Biological Products Co in 2020.To get more news about sinopharm vaccine latest update, you can visit shine news official website.

The Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV vaccine teaches the immune system to make antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 beta coronavirus. For several decades, inactivated virus vaccines have been successfully applied, such as vaccines against hepatitis A. In addition, this development technology has been successfully used in many well-known vaccines, such as the rabies vaccine.

Sinopharm's SARS-CoV-2 strain (WIV04 strain and GenBank number (MN996528) was isolated from a patient in the Jinyintan Hospital, Wuhan, China. The virus was cultivated in a qualified Vero cell line for propagation, and the supernatant of the infected cells was inactivated with β-propiolactone (1:4000 vol/vol at 2 to 8 °C) for 48 hours. Following clarification of cell debris and ultrafiltration, the second β-propiolactone inactivation was performed in the same conditions as the first inactivation.
On December 31, 2020, China's National Medical Products Administration announced the experimental BBIBP-CorV vaccine, developed by a State-owned Sinopharm, was Approved.

On May 7, 2021, the WHO announced the vaccine's approval, becoming Emergency Use Listed to expedite regulatory approvals to import and administer vaccines. WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) also completed its vaccine review. And the WHO published 'Evidence Assessment: Sinopharm/BBIBP COVID-19 vaccine.' Based on available evidence, the vaccine efficacy for symptomatic and hospitalized diseases was estimated to be 79% for all age groups combined.

On September 2, 2021, the WHO confirmed Interim recommendations for using the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine BIBP developed by China National Biotec Group (‎CNBG)‎, Sinopharm. The predecessor was the Central Epidemic Prevention Department of the Beiyang Government. In addition, the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts issued recommendations for the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine. On October 28, 2021, the WHO announced interim guidance for using the COVID-19 vaccine BIBP produced by Sinopharm based on advice issued by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization and the evidence summary included in the background document and annexes reviewed.

The JAMA Network published an Original Investigation on October 29, 2021, that concluded, 'In this cohort study of 663,602 participants, the use of non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines was associated with a significant reduction in all-cause death, COVID-related death, and documented infection with the use of 1 dose and even more with the use of 2 doses.'

The phase 3 study (HUN-VE) conducted across three continents published an interim analysis on November 25, 2021; the effectiveness of Sinopharm in preventing Covid-19 related death varied between 67.5% and 100% according to age ≥ seven days after the second dose, with an adjusted overall efficacy of 87.8%.

The Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV COVID-19 vaccine Drug Bank accession number: DB15807. CAS Number: 2503126-65-4. ATC code: J07BX03. Sinopharm BBIBP-CorV Recent Phase 3 studies: ChiCTR2000034780; NCT04510207; NCT04612972; NCT04612972. WHO Evidence Assessment in 2021.mmission

China National Pharmaceutical Group Co., Ltd. (Sinopharm) is a large healthcare group directly under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration of the State Council, with 128,000 employees and a full chain in the industry covering R&D, manufacturing, logistics and distribution, retail chains, healthcare, engineering services, exhibitions and conferences, international business and financial services. The vaccine is also manufactured by G42 Healthcare (Hayat-Vax).

The highlights this week: China’s economy suffers as the threat of lockdowns looms, U.S. health advisor Anthony Fauci criticizes Beijing’s COVID-19 policy, and Macao grapples with another crisis.To get more Shanghai economy news, you can visit shine news official website.

As parts of China lock down in response to rising COVID-19 cases, its economy is struggling to cope. Outside analysts have rapidly revised the country’s expected growth rates. Along with the direct consequences of the ongoing closure of Shanghai, China’s biggest financial hub, the public fears that further lockdowns are on the way, since the government remains committed to its zero-COVID policy.

Despite recording total cases in the low hundreds, Beijing has so far avoided a complete lockdown, although public transport, school systems, and other services are closed to help forestall further outbreaks. But some analysts have raised questions about the description of Beijing’s cases. Only about 10 percent of cases in Beijing are described as asymptomatic, while the majority of cases in Shanghai are classified that way.

The outbreaks, combined with global pressures such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, are taking an economic toll in China. Urban youth unemployment has passed 16 percent, up from around 10 percent before the pandemic, when new graduates were already struggling to find jobs. That is a political concern, too: Leaders in Beijing understand that unemployed young people helped drive so-called color revolutions in the post-Soviet world.

China’s overall unemployment rate—5.8 percent—is not as bad, but even people who have jobs are experiencing significant economic pain. Chinese firms tend to pass their problems directly on to their employees, thanks to the country’s lack of enforceable labor laws. Cutting salaries sharply or even not paying employees for months is common; it is already happening in Shanghai.

The question is whether these economic problems will last beyond the zero-COVID policy. Before the pandemic, there were already signs of slowdown, and the Chinese government’s political moves—such as its crackdown on the technology sector, one of the country’s most productive—have damaged economic growth. They also suggest the state has little appetite for any economic reform that might put limits on the Chinese Communist Party’s power.

China is still a long way off from a recession, but economic stagnation is particularly painful for a country accustomed to quick growth, as it has become in recent decades. The impacts are likely to be sharper in some regions than in others: The northeast, once the country’s manufacturing hub, has suffered economically since 2016, causing the population there to shrink by 10 percent between 2016 and 2020.

The boom times shaped Chinese financial decision-making, from the propensity to quit jobs with the expectation that another opportunity would present itself to investments based on the conviction that housing prices could only ever go up. (However, one thing that the boom-time mentality never disrupted was China’s sky-high savings rate.) Economic growth also encouraged risk, because even if people invested in a project that went broke, they assumed that the government had the resources—and the fear of instability—to step in and bail them out.

This attitude goes along with the idea that China was being restored to its natural place in the world; Chinese President Xi Jinping has put the same rhetoric at the core of his goals for national greatness and a “moderately prosperous society.” Meanwhile, domestic economists who have warned of a slowdown, such as Hong Hao, have seen their online presence deleted.

That puts Xi in a no-win situation right now. Going back on the zero-COVID policy risks devastating outbreaks, but it also means taking a sharp political hit, since the government has publicly recommitted itself to the strategy. But sticking to zero-COVID puts long-pledged economic goals out of reach.

China on Friday slashed a key interest rate to rescue its slumping housing market and head off a major downturn in the world's second largest economy.To get more latest china business news, you can visit shine news official website.

The People's Bank of China cut its five-year loan prime rate (LPR) by 15 basis points to 4.45%, the second reduction this year and the largest on record. Most analysts had expected a cut of five basis points.
China's LPR is the rate at which commercial banks lend to their best customers. It serves as the benchmark for other loans and the five-year maturity is typically used as a reference for mortgages.The central bank's decision to slash the five-year rate is the latest in a series of steps that China has taken to tackle a real estate crisis as Covid lockdowns threaten to push the economy into its first quarterly contraction since early 2020.

Sales of new homes plunged 47% in April from a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics earlier this week, while prices in 70 cities dropped for an eighth consecutive month.
"[Friday's move] signals that the leadership has ... decided to rescue [the property sector] as soon as possible," said Zhaopeng Xing, senior China strategist for ANZ Research. "It also suggests that China is making great efforts to achieve its 5.5% growth target" for 2022, he said.The Chinese economy could shrink in the second quarter, as Covid lockdowns wreak havoc on activity. Consumer spending and factory output both shrank sharply last month, while unemployment surged to the highest level since the initial coronavirus outbreak in early 2020.
The property sector, which accounts for as much as 30% of China's GDP, is also in a deepening crisis.
Evergrande — one of the country's biggest developers — is undergoing a huge restructuring after it defaulted on its huge debts late last year. Analysts have long feared Evergrande's collapse could have ripple effects across the property industry.
Property sales have slowed since last year, as tight credit policies and a weakening economy damped demand. This year's Covid lockdowns hit the industry further.
The Omicron wave and draconian lockdowns in around 40 cities have significantly limited mobility, employment, income and the confidence of Chinese households," Nomura analysts said.
"Beijing wants to rescue the property markets, which have experienced the worst contraction in many years," they added.
China's central bank announced some other measures this week to lift the market. The PBOC said last Sunday that it would cut the mortgage rate for first-time homebuyers.

China's Economy Reviving as Anti-Virus Curbs Ease

China's factory and consumer activity fell even more than expected in April under anti-virus controls, official data showed Monday, but a Cabinet official said the economy is reviving as anti-virus curbs ease and its commercial capital of Shanghai reopens.To get more China business news, you can visit shine news official website.
The slump in the second-biggest economy fueled fears global manufacturing and trade might be disrupted after most business in Shanghai were shut down and its 25 million people confined to their homes starting in late March. That adds to complications for President Xi Jinping in a year when he is expected to try to extend his time in power.

Retail sales tumbled 11.1% from a year ago after shops, restaurants and other consumer outlets in Shanghai and other cities closed, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Manufacturing sank 2.9% as factories closed.

This month's activity appears to be improving based on high power demand and more freight being moved, the bureau’s statistics chief, Fu Linghui, said at a news conference. He said about half of the 9,000 biggest industrial enterprises in Shanghai were back at work as outbreaks in China's biggest city were contained.We believe the operation of the economy is gradually improving,” Fu said. “The pace of recovery in consumption will accelerate as the impact of the epidemic is brought under control.”

The ruling Communist Party is trying to reverse a deepening slowdown without giving up “zero-COVID” tactics that also have shut down sections of Beijing and other major cities to isolate every infected person. Economists cut this year's growth forecasts to as low as 2%, well below the ruling party target of 5.5% and last year's 8.1% expansion.

“There is still considerable uncertainty and downside risk to the near-term outlook for China if new Covid-19 outbreaks should occur in other major urban areas,” Rajiv Biswas of S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a email.

The economy already was weak before the latest outbreaks after Beijing cracked down on debt in its vast real estate industry that Chinese leaders worry is dangerously high. That triggered a slide in construction and home sales, industries that support millions of jobs.

China kept case numbers low through early this year with a strategy that shut down cities of tens of millions of people. That prompted complaints about the soaring human and economic costs, leading the ruling party to shift to closing off buildings or neighborhoods with infections. But with thousands of new cases reported every day, that led to big sections of Beijing and other cities being shut down.

Dozens of areas of Beijing, Shanghai and other cities are deemed high- or medium-risk in a list issued Sunday by the National Health Commission, which requires shops and some other businesses to close. The other cities include Shenjiang in the south, Guang’an in the southwest and Harbin, Dandong and Yingkou in the northeast.Chinese officials have called for the virus to be brought under control ahead of a ruling party meeting in October or November at which Xi is expected to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader.

The economy grew by an anemic 4.8% over a year earlier in the three months ending in March. That was an improvement over the previous quarter’s 4.1%, but forecasters say activity in the three months through June might weaken.

Based on the latest data, activity in the current quarter might contract by 1% compared with a year ago, according to Iris Pang of ING.

“Our concern is whether China will have lockdowns elsewhere,” Pang said in a report. “Any city that has to endure a 1-month lockdown will have its GDP in contraction on a yearly basis for that month.”

Shanghai, China’s richest city, will gradually reopen shopping malls, vegetable markets, hair salons and other businesses starting Monday, the government announced.

A deputy mayor, Zong Ming, said the number of people in Shanghai who are barred from leaving their homes has fallen below 1 million, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Zong said Sunday the number of commercial outlets operating in the city had increased to 10,625 from a low of 1,400.

Shanghai capacity creeps back but trucking trouble remains

Flight capacity is slowly improving but trucking remains in trouble as the Shanghai lockdown goes on and there are concerns a lockdown could be rolled out in Beijing.To get more shanghai airport latest news, you can visit shine news official website.

Flexport said in a market update on April 26 that Shanghai continues to undergo lockdown due to high amounts of Covid cases.

A round of Covid-19 testing will be undertaken over the next few days to determine which areas of Shanghai can safely start reopening. However, Beijing is now waiting to see whether lockdown measures will be implemented in the city.

“Flight capacity has recovered slightly compared to last week, but the main bottleneck is a lack of trucking capacity,” said Flexport. “Despite this, airlines have increased rate levels as we head towards Golden Week.”

Flexport added that the pandemic and Ukraine war ripple effects are still impacting flight frequency in South China, but demand is rising.

“Ex-South China the flight frequency has still not recovered due to the Covid situation and war conflict, however demand continues to pick up. Rates maintain at around the same levels as last week and the market is quite strong before the holiday.”

Westbound Logistics Services said on April 24 that Zhengzhou, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports have been suffering congestion as they handle diverted cargo from Shanghai Airport (PVG).“Strict controls remain on transport in and out of PVG, while many flights remain suspended. Being China’s major international hub, this has led to traffic from outer regions being diverted elsewhere.

“Airports such as Zhengzhou, Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been carrying the weight of this diverted volume, leading to congestion, a shortage of airline pallets and little or no capacity to store cargo.”

Norman Global Logistics has predicted that logistics disruption will last into “at least mid-May” before capacity returns to a normal level.

It said Covid measures in place in Shanghai and Ningbo are putting pressure on regional transport and logistics, with delays and longer wait times for vessels and limited transport to and from the seaport and airport that has seen road transport costs and the waiting time costs in the affected areas rise.

More supply chain pressure will be added with a further drop in exports from China’s main ports due to limitations with recently restarted factory production and connecting transport, said Norman.

Dimerco noted on April 26 that a Shenzhen-Hong Kong freighter service is now operating to address the a lack of trucking capacity while, cross-border trucking capacity continues to be very limited and terminals lack manpower due to Covid.

Meanwhile in the Republic of Korea, capacity is tightening up due to airfreight shipments being re-routed to the country from North China as a result of the ongoing Covid lockdowns.

Flexport added that in Europe, demand is steady with rates at a stable high and jet fuel prices starting to decrease, but freighter capacity is still “heavily reduced”.Its Americas update noted that demand remains high and most airlines have cancelled their flights into Shanghai Pudong Airport (PVG) due to the current Covid-related lockdown.

China has reported disappointing economic data for the month of April, underscoring the extensive damage Covid lockdowns have wreaked on the country.To get more news about china coronavirus update, you can visit shine news official website.

The world's second largest economy reported shocking drops in retail sales and factory production, widely missing market expectations.
Retail sales plunged 11.1% in April from a year ago, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics on Monday. That was well below the 6.1% drop forecast in a Reuters survey of economists, and also much lower than the 3.5% decrease seen in March.This marks the worst contraction in industrial production since February 2020, when China's economy came to a near standstill during the initial coronavirus outbreak.
Unemployment also surged to the second highest level on record.The urban jobless rate hit 6.1% in April, up from 5.8% in March — which was already at a 21-month high. The only time China's jobless rate was higher was in February 2020.
Young people have been finding it especially hard to find jobs, the data showed, with the unemployment rate for those between 16 to 24 years of age rising to 18.2% — the highest ever.
Rising unemployment is a warning sign for the ruling Communist Party given the risk of social and political instability.
"After all, zero-Covid at the cost of surging unemployment is a hard sell politically," said Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Capital.
The government expects the economy to rebound this month.
"Economic performance" in May will improve, said NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui on Monday.
"As the outbreaks are under control and people's life return to normal, pent-up consumption will be gradually released," he said.China's economy was off to a solid start in 2022, recording 4.8% growth for the first quarter.
But Beijing's efforts to curb its worst Covid outbreak in two years have dealt a hefty blow to activity since March, and economists now expect GDP to shrink this quarter.
So far, at least 31 cities in the country remain under full or partial lockdown, according to CNN's latest calculations. Shanghai, the country's financial center and a manufacturing hub, has been under lockdown for more than six weeks. During this period, many companies have been forced to suspend operations, including automakers Tesla (TSLA)and Volkswagen (VLKAF) and iPhone assembler Pegatron.
"We think Q2 GDP growth will likely turn negative," said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist for Pinpoint Asset Management, on Monday.
"The government faces mounting pressure to launch new stimulus to stabilize the economy," Zhang said.The leadership in China is aware of the economic pains and has taken some steps recently to bring relief.
The People's Bank of China announced Sunday that it would cut the mortgage rate for first-time homebuyers, in a move to lift the ailing property market.
Separately, the Shanghai government said the city will gradually open shops, restaurants, and salons from Monday, which will be a relief for its 25 million residents.
The government has also recently pledged to prop up the economy through more infrastructure spending and targeted monetary easing to support small businesses.
Monday's data showed investments in manufacturing increased 12.2% from a year ago. Infrastructure investment, meanwhile, rose 6.5%.
But "the risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside, as the effectiveness of policy stimulus will largely depend on the scale of future Covid outbreaks and lockdowns," said Tommy Wu, lead China economist for Oxford Economics, on Monday.

Tencent Music Entertainment Group, the leading online music and audio entertainment platform in China, today announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2022.
We delivered a healthy 18% year-over-year growth in subscription revenues with paying users exceeding 80 million in the first quarter, as supported by our dual engine content-and-platform strategy. Despite the headwinds in an evolving market landscape, which resulted in a year-over-year decline in total revenues, our efforts to optimize cost structure and improve operating efficiency led to improved profitability quarter-over-quarter," said Mr. Cussion Pang, Executive Chairman of TME. "In an era of increasing entertainment choices, the ability to sustain a competitive advantage is awarded to those who offer users a differentiated experience. We are encouraged by the increasing benefits our original content production investments and Tencent Musician Platform have brought to our users, musicians and the overall content ecosystem. With these initiatives, we continue to make critical investments that align with our long-term strategic goals and create sustainable value for all our music stakeholders."To get more tencent news, you can visit shine news official website.

"In the first quarter, we continued to build an immersive music entertainment ecosystem, bringing music lovers innovative possibilities for how they listen, watch, sing and play. With the goal of creating a sense of belonging that makes our products a must-have, we look for ways to address the multi-faceted needs of diverse user cohorts," said Mr. Ross Liang, CEO of TME. "In the first quarter, we further strengthened our cooperation with Tencent's ecosystem in content production and promotion, with the rewards becoming increasingly manifest. In addition, our long-form audio continued to gain traction thanks to differentiated content, and we are working on improving its monetization efficiency mainly through memberships. Moving forward, we will continue to make our ecosystem, content, products and services differentiated and highly specialized. This, in turn, will help us better serve hundreds of millions of music lovers, music creators and the music industry as a whole, and unlock the massive opportunity in front of us," concluded Mr. Liang.
The year-over-year decline in online music mobile MAUs was primarily due to churn of our casual users and reduced marketing spending required by our more disciplined cost management. However, online music paying users continued to deliver robust year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter growth, reaching 80.2 million, which was attributable to our high-quality content and services, effective promotions, as well as improvement in paying user loyalty.

Social entertainment services MAUs and paying users were lower year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, affected by industry and macro headwinds. We will continue to improve our competitiveness through ongoing product innovations and new initiatives in social entertainment such as audio live streaming, international expansion and virtual interactive product offerings.

We remained committed to strengthening our original content production capabilities, to systematically create, evaluate and promote music.
With Xingyao Plan and Galaxy Plan, we empower original content production by leveraging technology to add value across demo and singer discovery throughout the phases of production, distribution and promotion for these original works. In the first quarter, we delivered dozens of original hit songs to a broad audience, including "Mirage" and "Drown," two sweeping successes that topped multiple music charts and both achieved peak daily streams in excess of 13 million.
We achieved top rankings for our original content in key verticals such as gaming, Chinese Ancient Style and pop music. In the first quarter, we collaborated with Tencent Games' popular titles, including PUBG Mobile, Honour of Kings, League of Legends: Wild Rift to produce chart-topping original songs by leading artists such as Hua Chenyu, Chen Linong, Mao Buyi and Z.TAO.
Tencent Musician Platform cultivates budding musicians by providing them with all-round services to help showcase their talent and passion.
Established sustainable and diverse monetization models for musicians, which helps them earn a better living while focusing on honing their craft, as demonstrated by the distribution of over RMB200 million from our platform to musicians during the past 12 months.
Launched a new behind-the-scenes producer service, with more than 50 well-known industry professionals and more than 100,000 creators joining in the first quarter, as well as a customized self-service productivity toolkit to empower musicians to create and promote their works more efficiently and reach a larger audience.
Motivated aspiring talents with diverse creative scenarios and rich online and offline promotion resources, driving accelerated professional growth and broader recognition for musicians such as Liu Shuang and Georgina Qian.