Zero-covid was disruptive. So is the alternative. A surge in covid-19 cases in China is threatening to cause economic chaos as the country struggles to adjust to the abrupt end to the government’s strict virus curbs, according to the Financial Times. More than half of the capital city’s inhabitants are currently infected, according to some estimates — and while office workers can work from home, the outbreak is throwing the country’s key manufacturing sector and supply chains into further disarray amid staffing shortages. Firms could face labor shortages until February 2023, experts are quoted as saying.

Dismal voter turnout in Saturday’s parliamentary election has puts Tunisia's president in a quandary: Just 8.8% of the Tunisian electorate voted in Saturday’s vote — giving fresh ammunition to an opposition that has accused President Kais Saied of a power grab and is now calling for him to be ousted, Reuters reports. “After 90% of Tunisians abstained there is no doubt that Saied's project was largely rejected,” said Ahmed Idriss, head of the Tunis Institute for Politics.