beijing china is facing atsunami of omicron a senior official said on friday as the country reported over 20000 covid19 cases with its largest city shanghai continuing to reel under lockdown for over three weeks while over 21 million people in capital beijing underwent third nucleic acid test amid the growing list of highrisk areasall the residents in beijing will be required to have a negative covid19 test within 48 hours to enter public spaces from saturday the municipal government said on fridaya negative test result will be required to enter public venues during the upcoming fiveday labour day holiday and students and employees should produce their test results before they go back to work or school after the holiday according to a press conference on local epidemic prevention and control workon friday two communities in beijing were classified as highrisk and mediumrisk areas for covid19 the latest classifications have brought the total number of highrisk areas in beijing to six and mediumrisk areas to 19 the staterun xinhua news agency reportedcurrently we are faced with the omicron tsunami this variant spread very fast much faster than we can imagine chinese foreign ministry spokesman zhao lijian told a media briefing here on friday the first official account of the extent of the current wave of covid19 which is affecting city after city in china just when the world has largely came out of itchinas national health commission on friday reported over 20000 positive and asymptomatic cases with shanghai reporting over 15000 cases on thursday besides deaths taking the total toll during the nearly monthlong outbreak to 337zhao said china brought under control delta variant spread in 2021 in about 14 days but the omicron attack was far more severe he was replying to a question on the eu chamber of commerce in china expressing concern about the state of the worlds secondlargest economy and its criticism that the zerocovid policy has led the country into a dead endjoerg wuttke president of the eu chamber in an interview said shanghai chinas biggest business hub has been in lockdown for a month and chinas economy is suffering an enormous slumpthe supply chains are so interlinked that lockdown measures in one place have ripple effects on other regions he said urging china to take an example from singapore where politics and society have learned to live with the coronaviruschina is losing its credibility as the best sourcing location in the world he said the omicron wave is like a game of whackamole for china first xian was locked down then shenzhen then shanghai and so on now were all wondering whats next he said in the interview published in themarketchthe case of shanghai is bad in its own image it is the best and most advanced city in china from shanghais point of view beijing is a province and xian is a backwater and then life in this metropolis grinds to a complete standstill we in the international business community look to europe