30-40 per cent workforce in Japanese firms in China

 Amid a surge in coronavirus cases, the Embassy of Japan in Beijing has said that many employees of Japanese firms operating in China are getting infected with COVID-19 and are being asked to work from home, NHK World reported.

Plants are also functioning with lower capacities in China. Speaking to NHK, Yoshikawa Akinobu, head of the Japan External Trade Organization's office in Qingdao, said that COVID-19 began spreading quickly around December 16.

According to Yoshikawa, there are Japanese firms where 30-40 per cent of the workforce has tested COVID-19 positive. Here production capacities have been reduced by nearly half. However, the companies continue to make efforts to maintain operations with workers, according to NHK World.

Health authorities in Qingdao, Shandong provinces of China last Friday estimated that COVID-19 cases have been rising by 490,000 to 530,000 people per day. According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the new COVID-19 cases across the nation reached 2,637 on Sunday.

The centre further said that the confirmed cases in Zhejiang province 19, which is a very less number in comparison to the figure of one million new cases a day reported by health authorities in the province the day before, as per the NHK World report. Furthermore, the number of COVID-19 cases in Shandong Province was 21.

The report said that the centre's figure indicated discrepancies with the daily number of cases reported by health authorities in Qingdao last Friday.

According to NHK World, the Embassy of Japan in Beijing said that some Japanese firms have reported that their employees are coming back to offices as coronavirus infections have likely peaked in Beijing.

Meanwhile, Beijing will soon start distribution of Pfizer's Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to the community health centres in forthcoming days, CNN reported citing state media on Monday. The report comes as the city grapples with an unprecedented wave of infections that has strained its hospitals and emptied pharmacy shelves.

After getting training, community doctors will dispense the medicine to COVID-19 patients and provide information on how to use it, according to CNN. Notably, Paxlovid remains the only foreign medicine that has been approved by China's regulator for treating COVID-19 patients. However, access to drug continues to remain a challenging procedure.

"We have received the notice from officials, but it is not clear when the drugs will arrive," CNN cited a worker at a local community health centre in Beijing's Xicheng district as saying.