by Guido Santevecchi
As of March 28, Shanghai is in lockdown due to the increase in Covid cases. It was to be a lightning campaign, met with the usual Chinese zerotolerance aggression, and on April 4th, life was to return to normal. But the infections continued to increase
Will red flags win the war against Covid19 in Shanghai? The Communist Party has sent an open letter to 313,000 members urging them not to be afraid to draw our swords to combat the behaviors that are hampering the operation to smother the wave of infections.
The appeal is a sign that the stakes are high: the health campaign to smother the coronavirus in China’s commercial and financial capital is turning into a political challenge.
As of March 28, Shanghai is in lockdown. It should have been a flash campaign, fought with the usual Chinese zerotolerance aggression: people locked at home, swabs, positives (symptomatic and not) sent to isolation centers. And by April 4th, life in Shanghai should have returned to normal. But cases continued to rise: another 21,000 were identified yesterday; over 100,000 positives over the past four weeks, 90 percent asymptomatic but all in isolation (with no home care fiduciary). In order to contain them, the Shanghai authorities have turned the major expo facilities into collective quarantine centers, where the reception conditions are inadequate for the habits of middleclass citizens (Shanghai is the richest city with the highest standard of living in China). In any case, the beds are no longer enough, so the Beijing press reports that at this crucial and complex stage, other cities have been mobilized to accommodate up to 60,000 patients evacuated from Shanghai.
An impressive operation because it also involves close contacts and close contacts of positive people. From dusk to dawn you can find a Shanghai citizen in Hangzhou, 170 kilometers from his home, or even in Yangzhou, 400 kilometers away (these are not rumours, we quote from the Beijingbased party newspaper Global Times, editor’s note. ) . However, those lucky enough to be healthy, not having been in contact with any positive, are closed at home. The buildings are surrounded by plastic or wooden barriers, with padlocks on the gates and vigilantes at street crossings. Those who have to work in vital offices in order not to shut down the commercial and financial services of the megalopolis will be forced into office lockdown. Photos of camping tents set up behind desks, sleeping bags spread out on rows of chairs in meeting rooms have been posted on social media.
The biggest problem is the food supply. Household supplies are nearing exhaustion due to the extended lockdown and authorities have been unable to organize regular home deliveries. There have been protests, documented with videos on social media: people leaning out of windows screaming in frustration at the confinement, chants like “we want to work, “we want freedom. Of course, people in Shanghai just want to get back to their jobs and out of lockdown. But 2020’s Xi Jinping sent the message that it was the partystate that saved the Chinese from the pandemic chaos that the United States and Europe have been experiencing. And to prevent the protest from escalating to the point of touching the party that the open letter has arrived to the 313,000 members so they can watch and draw their sword in an emergency.
Chinese epidemiologists are convinced that if they continue to swab every three days for everyone, they can theoretically bring the situation under control in a few weeks. But even for China, which thrives on gigantism, such a challenge seems daunting. Financial services group Nomura analyzed the information coming from across China and estimated that 193 million Chinese are in more or less hermetic lockdown in 23 cities, accounting for 22% of China’s GDP. The struggle to prevent Shanghai from being overwhelmed by the wave of Covid19 threatens to become the most serious crisis in Xi Jinping’s decade of absolute power.
April 8, 2022 (change April 8, 2022 | 10:48)
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