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The virus has forced lockdowns in several large cities this year, making the current outbreak the country’s worst since the pandemic started in Wuhan in 2019 and threatening to derail the world’s second-largest economy.

Figures released on Friday showed that factory activity in China slumped at the fastest pace in two years in March, as the resurgence of Covid and the economic fallout from the Ukraine war triggered sharp falls in production and demand.

The slowdown in China’s economy has also caused the price of oil to fall as markets bet that the world’s number two economy will not require as much fuel.

Bill Bishop, the respected China observer, said on Friday that concern about the outbreak in Shanghai had been heightened by reports in the Wall Street Journal that there had been deaths at a care facility in the city.

“The outbreak in Shanghai is getting worse, it looks likely lockdowns will be tightened and extended …” he wrote in his weekly newsletter, Sinocism.

“The case number data from Shanghai already look a little strange, if the officials are also covering up deaths then this could get really bad.”