- China: Shenzhen confined, factories shut down

The 17 million residents of Shenzhen, the tech hub of southern China, were locked down on Monday due to a record spike in Covid-19 cases, while restrictions were imposed in other major cities across the country. , including Shanghai.

Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn, Apple's main supplier, has suspended operations in Shenzhen and shifted production to other sites.

In Shanghai, China's most populous metropolis, residential neighborhoods are cordoned off.

Authorities on Monday identified 2,300 new cases across the country.

Nearly 3,400 had been counted the day before, the highest figure since the start of the pandemic.

While the number of cases remains low compared to other countries, it remains remarkable in China, which has applied a zero-tolerance policy since 2020.

- Beware of the economic repercussions of Chinese confinement (Breton)

The sanitary confinement decreed in several Chinese cities, which forces factories to stop, “will have” economic “repercussions if it lasts”, estimated Monday the European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton.

China "is in the process of reconfiguring all the companies in the Pearl River delta, that is to say almost between Shenzen and Canton, where you have the largest sectors of economic activity and in particular in electronics" , he continued.

“Obviously, we are going to have a stop in the value chains and automatically, if it lasts, it will have repercussions”.

- France: end of the mask and the vaccination pass

France lifted most of the anti-Covid restrictions on Monday.

There is no longer any obligation to wear a mask, except in transport and in health establishments.

But companies can always decide to impose it on their employees.

The epidemic was in the downward phase in France when the government announced the relief in early March.

However, the number of daily cases has started to rise again, with a seven-day average of more than 65,250 on Sunday, compared with 50,646 a week earlier.

- Positive policies

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Monday that he tested positive for Covid-19, the day after a trip to Turkey, where he had lunch with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Former US President Barack Obama announced on Sunday that he tested positive after mild symptoms but said he felt "well".

More than 6 million dead

The pandemic has officially killed at least 6,041,660 people worldwide since the end of December 2019, according to a report established by AFP on Monday at 11:00 GMT.

The United States is the country with the most deaths (967,552), ahead of Brazil (655,078), India (515,877) and Russia (361,344).

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, taking into account the excess mortality directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19, that the toll of the pandemic could be two to three times higher than that officially established.

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© 2022 AFP