On Monday, Shanghai, China’s financial hub and economic capital went into lock down in two stages over nine days while authorities carry out Covid-19 testing.
The lockdown will be conducted in two phases. First, Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be quarantined from Monday to Friday. Second, Pudong will pass the baton to the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River, which will start its own five-day lockdown on Friday.
To control the growing outbreak, the lockdown will be accompanied by a new round of mass nucleic acid testing across the city, China’s Xinhua reported, citing Shanghai officials. Beijing recorded 3,500 cases of the infection on Sunday.
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Public transport, including ride-hailing services, in these areas will be suspended when they are locked down, the city government said on its official WeChat account, adding that unapproved vehicles will not be allowed on the roads.
It also said that all companies and factories will suspend manufacturing or work remotely during the lockdown, apart from those involved in offering public services or supplying food. Groceries will be delivered and left at checkpoints.
The city government published the instructions on its WeChat account, asking the public “to support, understand and cooperate with the city’s epidemic prevention and control work”.
Shanghai has battled a new COVID-19 surge for nearly a month and on Saturday it reported its highest daily number of cases since the initial outbreak in China receded. The city recorded 2,631 new asymptomatic cases, which accounted for nearly 60 percent of China’s total new asymptomatic cases that day, plus 47 new cases with symptoms.
While the number of cases in Shanghai remains modest by global standards, the city of 26 million people has become a testing ground for China’s “zero-COVID” strategy.
In line with the policy, China’s authorities are free to use public health measures such as mass testing, contact tracing, and lockdowns in order to stop community transmission of the virus as soon as it is detected.
The goal is to get the area of an outbreak back to zero new infections and resume normal economic and social activities as soon as possible. The policy has been criticized by many, however, who argue that it takes too much of an economic toll.
Shanghai authorities have previously resisted a broad lockdown of the city to avoid destabilizing its economy and opted for a more bespoke “slicing and gridding” approach, which involves screening neighbourhoods one by one.
Some Shanghai residents have complained about the seemingly endless cycles of testing, suggesting that the cost of zero-Covid had become too high.
China reported a total of 4,448 new asymptomatic infections on March 26, up from 4,430 a day earlier, including 1,007 new cases in the northeastern province of Jilin, currently under lockdown.
The country reported 1,254 new confirmed cases with symptoms, down from 1,335 a day earlier. Of the new cases, 1,217 were locally transmitted, versus 1,280 a day earlier.
There were no deaths reported on March 26, leaving the death toll at 4,638. As of March 26, mainland China had confirmed 143,240 cases of COVID-19.
Nnamdi Maduakor is a Writer, Investor and Entrepreneur
