ALTHOUGH many local businesses, such as restaurants and beverage establishments in shopping malls, are now allowed to seat dine-in customers, there is still a long road ahead before businesses can return to normal operations, local Chinese-language media reported Thursday.

According to an instruction on the resumption of businesses and production released by the Guangdong provincial authority Wednesday, most businesses in shopping malls, excluding movie theaters, bars and night clubs, KTVs, children’s indoor playgrounds, and nursery rooms, are allowed to resume operation.

The reopened businesses must carry out the full range of prevention and control measures, including body temperature checks and regular disinfection of common areas, against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that has infected tens of thousands of people nationwide over the past months.

Under the instruction, which was rolled out in response to the lowering of the COVID-19 emergency response level in the province, restaurants may resume restricted dine-in services, though most business is still coming from take-out services, the Southern Metropolis Daily said.

An unnamed staffer with the operator of Coco Park shopping mall in Futian District told the Daily on Wednesday that about half of the restaurants and eateries in the mall have restarted dine-in services, but income from take-out services still accounts for up to 90 percent of the daily revenue of these restaurants presently.

“Business has picked up as many companies in the neighborhood have resumed work and production,” the staffer said.

Supermarkets recorded the most daily foot traffic since the resumption of businesses in the city, the Daily said.

“The number of people visiting our supermarket has been increasing in recent days,” said a manager surnamed Liu with the supermarket in Injoy shopping center in Futian District.

The supermarket now receives about 3,000 visitors daily whereas there were only about 100 shoppers per day in early February when the COVID-19 outbreak was at its peak in the city, said Liu, adding that they usually received 10,000 shoppers a day before the outbreak.

Apart from fruit, vegetables and other packaged food and daily necessities, the deli section of a supermarket in Bao’an District also attracts many shoppers, especially during lunch hours, the Daily said.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed business analyst as saying that currently supermarkets have the best performance among all offline businesses, as what supermarkets sell is indispensable to people.

“You can survive not dining in a restaurant, or not watching a movie in the theater, but you can’t survive not having food to buy from a supermarket,” the business analyst said.

Although foot traffic has increased compared to earlier this month, residents are still concerned about the virus.

A woman hurried out of Injoy after finishing up her shopping trip Wednesday.

“It is not a good time to stroll around the shopping center as I can’t risk getting infected [with the virus],” she said.

Many shopping center operators have said they feel helpless in the current situation. “It worries us to see so few visitors as it means bad business, but it is also worrying to see so many visitors as risks [of COVID-19 infection] increase with the growing numbers,” said a branding manager of a large shopping mall in Nanshan District. “We don’t even think about organizing a PR event.”

Huang Ting, who has hosted the annual dessert carnival for a number of shopping centers across the city over the past few years, told the Daily that many of her clients won’t organize activities of any kind until the second half of this year when the COVID-19 outbreak is expected to end and its impact diminishes.

On Monday, the Shenzhen city government allowed the catering companies to provide restricted dine-in services on the condition that they meet certain prevention requirements as the city has reported no new infections of the virus for several days. Detailed prevention requirements were included in Monday’s instructions for the catering business. The same day, 53 restaurants at One Avenue shopping center started receiving dine-in customers, media reports said.

However, before the epidemic prevention and control restrictions are lifted, a food or beverage establishment is prohibited from hosting large-scale dinner gatherings.  

(Wei Jie)

Local Daily Report on COVID-19 Infections

New: 0

Total: 417

Recovered: 271

Death toll: 3