SHANGHAI – China’s most populous city on Tuesday tightened the first phase of a two-tier COVID-19 lockdown, asking some residents to stay indoors unless tested as the number of new daily cases tops 4,400.
The financial hub of Shanghai, home to 26 million people, is on the second day of a lockdown authorities are imposing, roughly dividing the city along the Huangpu River and separating the historic center from the eastern financial and industrial district of Pudong by one to allow stagger testing.
While Shanghai’s caseload remains modest by global standards — a record 4,381 asymptomatic cases and 96 symptomatic cases for Monday — the city has become a testing ground for China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, which seeks to control the highly infectious Omicron variant bring.
Residents east of the Huangpu were confined to their condominiums on Monday, but were largely allowed to move around. On Tuesday, however, three residents said Reuters neighborhood committees had told them they were no longer allowed to leave their homes.
“Kids were still having picnics and having fun yesterday,” said one of them, who declined to be identified for privacy reasons.
Wu Qianyu, an official with the city health commission, said in a briefing that a “clear request” had been made to residents not to leave their homes during “a key period of nuclear research,” including to walk pets or dispose of rubbish “acid test”.
She said 8.26 million tests were carried out by up to 17,000 testing personnel in the city’s lockdown areas as of Monday.
“The large number of medical personnel, grassroots cadres, community workers and volunteers have shared the very hard work on the frontline of epidemic prevention and control, and they should be thanked,” Wu said.
There were growing signs of frustration on China’s social media and dozens of residents flocked to the Weibo platform to seek help for relatives, with some struggling to access medical supplies.
Though China is sticking to its plan to crack down on the outbreak, overseas experts remain skeptical about the effectiveness of lockdowns amid a highly contagious new variant.
“It’s clear from Australia and other parts of the world that lockdowns against Omicron just aren’t effective – so expect a big wave,” said Adrian Esterman, a biostatistics expert at the University of South Australia.
SUPPORT
Drone footage released by state media showed empty streets beneath the skyscrapers of the city’s Lujiazui financial district. Local public transport in the east has been shut down and all non-registered vehicles have been cleared from the streets.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange in the west of the city said it has maintained a skeleton staff for key operations at the exchange, while others are working from home.
The General Motors (GM.N) joint venture has managed to keep production going by asking workers to sleep on factory floors, people familiar with the matter said. Continue reading
Residents in the west of the city have been stocking up in shops and markets in anticipation of their lockdown from April 1.
But US hypermarket chain Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O), whose Shanghai store has attracted crowds of shoppers in recent days, said it would close from Tuesday, along with some gyms and malls in western districts as well.
The city government has introduced new measures to try to support businesses affected by COVID, including rent exemptions and tax rebates. Continue reading
The Communist Party tabloid, the Global Times, quoted Peking University economist Cao Heping as saying that while the city’s growth would be hampered, the national economy would not suffer much.
Elsewhere, the city of Changchun, capital of northeastern Jilin Province, apologized to its population of 8.5 million for food shortages linked to disruptions from containment measures. Continue reading
The Shenzhen manufacturing hub is gradually getting back on its feet after the shutdowns, but many companies are concerned about the near-term outlook, the Securities Times reported. Continue reading
Reporting by Brenda Goh, Samuel Shen, Winni Zhou, Engen Tham, Eduardo Baptista, David Stanway, and the Shanghai and Beijing editors; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell, Robert Birsel