SHANGHAI, April 17 – Shanghai has set a goal of halting the spread of COVID-19 outside of quarantine areas by Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter said, which would allow the city to further ease its lockdown and move forward with the Return to start normal life while public frustration grows.
According to a speech by a local Communist Party official on Saturday, a copy of which Reuters saw, the goal will require officials to speed up COVID testing and the transfer of positive cases to quarantine centers.
The termination of community-level broadcasting was a game changer for other Chinese places to go into lockdown, such as Take the city of Shenzhen, which reopened public transport last month and allowed businesses to return to work shortly after reaching that goal.
Shanghai has become the epicenter of China’s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and has recorded more than 320,000 COVID infections since early March, when its surge began.
Frustrated Shanghai residents have taken to social media to vent their anger at local authorities over difficulties in finding food, lost income, separated families and poor conditions in central quarantine centers. Tensions have occasionally erupted in public protests or scuffles with the police. Continue reading
The Chinese economy and global supply chains are also feeling pinched by closed factories and transportation shortages in many parts of China hit by COVID-19 curbs. Continue reading
Shanghai has already taken gradual steps to ease restrictions. State television reported on Sunday that some supermarkets had reopened their doors to shoppers, despite many residents expressing disbelief in social media posts. A social media account backed by the Shanghai government said it was in a district on the outskirts of the city.
TURNING POINT
Shanghai’s new target of “zero-COVID at the community level” by April 20 has been shared with the city’s Communist Party cadres and organizations such as schools in recent days, according to the sources, who declined to be named because the information was not available were public.
China’s community-level definition of zero-COVID status means no new cases emerge outside of quarantine areas.
A speech by Baoshan District Party secretary dated Saturday described it as an order issued as the city’s situation reached a “critical moment,” with growing public concern and pressure on food supplies.
“The working group of the State Council, the city party committee and the city government have demanded that the turning point of the epidemic should appear on the 17th and zero-COVID status should be achieved on the 20th,” Chen Jie said in the speech.
The Shanghai government and China’s State Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Baoshan county government could not be reached by phone outside of working hours on Sunday.
Local residents queue for nucleic acid tests during a lockdown amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Shanghai, China, April 16, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo
“This is a military order, there is no room for negotiation, we can only grit our teeth and fight for victory. It can also be said that this is an all-out attack, a last-ditch fight to reverse the trend of the epidemic,” the speech said.
A Shanghai resident told Reuters that her neighborhood committee sent out a notice to residents on Sunday that more workers and buses had been mobilized to speed up the transfer of positive cases on her premises to quarantine centers.
Pictures and videos circulating on Chinese social media on Saturday night showed scores of buses lining up to take away long lines of people who users said have tested positive for COVID outside a town in Shanghai’s eastern Pudong district was. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the posts.
Of 23,643 new local infections Shanghai reported for Saturday, 722 were found outside the quarantine areas, according to Wu Jinglei, director of the Shanghai Health Commission. He told a news conference on Sunday that the number had been declining over the past two days.
REOPENING OF SHOPS
China’s “dynamic release” approach to COVID control requires authorities to centrally quarantine all cases and isolate their close contacts.
Beijing authorities intervened in Shanghai in early April after the financial hub failed to isolate COVID-19 despite the city’s gradual lockdown. Chinese President Xi Jinping has insisted China must not relax coronavirus measures and must stick to an elimination approach. Continue reading
Shanghai began locking down areas east of the Huangpu River on March 28 and expanded the lockdown to the city-wide on April 1. While she eased restrictions on movement for some residents last week, most businesses remain closed and public transport is halted.
Business leaders have become increasingly open about the toll the lockdowns are taking on the Chinese economy, with automakers warning they could be forced to shut down production entirely if their suppliers in Shanghai and neighboring areas are not able to resume work soon. Continue reading
On Friday, China’s industry regulator said it had identified 666 semiconductor, automotive and medical companies in Shanghai as priority companies that need to resume work. Continue reading
Late on Saturday, Shanghai authorities gave guidance on what measures companies should take to restart production in the city, such as:
Reuters has reported that Tesla (TSLA.O) is preparing to reopen its Shanghai factory on April 18. read more
SAIC Motor Corp (600104.SS), the Chinese partner of Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and General Motors (GM.N), is preparing to resume production and will begin conducting “stress tests” on Monday.
Reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom; Edited by Edmund Klaman