coronavirus
Due to a major outbreak of CoV in Shanghai, authorities have imposed a two-step lockdown on the Chinese port city of 26 million people. As of Monday morning (local time), there is a curfew on the Pudong side east of the Huangpu River. The lockdown is expected to last until Friday. The city only announced the change on Sunday.
03.27.2022 22.00
Online since yesterday, 10pm
At the same time, mass testing was requested. A similar curfew will be imposed on the Puxi side, which is the oldest part of the metropolis west of the Huangpu River, from Friday until April 5. No more public transport, ferries or taxis. Companies need to move to the home office or work with staff who live in a closed factory.
The radical move followed a rapid rise in infections in Shanghai, which currently has the highest number of cases next to Jilin province in northeast China. About 5,500 infections were reported across the country on Saturday, including 4,300 asymptomatic cases. Shanghai counted 47 cases and 2,631 cases without symptoms. All infected must be quarantined.
So far, only individual residential areas have been cordoned off.
Until now, officials have wanted to avoid extensive curfews and, with a “dynamic zero-CoV strategy,” have only temporarily isolated individual residential areas for mass testing. The move that has now been announced was also surprising as officials ruled out a lockdown in the metropolis on Saturday because of the far-reaching effects on the economy.
Reuters/Aly Song A man hands a woman a plastic bag over a gate blocking the entrance to a gated community
A “complete shutdown” of Shanghai would mean that “many international cargo ships would be floating in the East China Sea,” a Shanghai CoV crisis team representative said in the run-up to the measure that was finally imposed. “It would have an impact on the entire national and global economy,” he said earlier.
Zero-CoV Strategy
China is pursuing a null-CoV strategy, which has been put to the test with the arrival of the most widespread omicron variant since the beginning of the year. Until then, authorities had successfully tackled small outbreaks with curfews, mass testing, contact tracing and quarantine. Life in China has been pretty much normal for nearly two years now, even though the country has isolated itself from abroad. Almost no visas are issued. Anyone entering the country must also be quarantined for three weeks.