Shanghai will implement a phased lockdown to contain an Omicron-powered Covid-19 outbreak that has hit China with the highest number of cases since the pandemic began, the city government said.
China’s largest city will lockdown its eastern half Monday through Friday, officials said, followed by a similar lockdown of its west side from April 1.
The metropolis of 25 million has emerged in recent days as the leading hotspot of a nationwide outbreak that gained momentum in early March.
A record 3,450 symptomatic cases were reported in Shanghai on Sunday, accounting for nearly 70% of the nationwide total, along with 50 symptomatic cases, the municipal government said on Monday.
China’s National Health Commission on Monday reported 5,134 new asymptomatic cases for the previous day and 1,219 locally confirmed infections.
Although the case numbers remain insignificant in a global context, they are the highest in China since the first weeks of the pandemic, which first emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
Millions of residents in affected areas across the country have been placed in citywide lockdowns.
However, Shanghai had so far avoided a full lockdown, and officials said it was imperative to keep the east China port and financial center afloat for the benefit of the national and global economy.
The city government previously said in a public statement that the two-part lockdown was being implemented “to contain the spread of the epidemic, keep people safe and healthy” and stamp out cases of infection “as soon as possible”.
The city’s sprawling eastern half, known as Pudong, which includes the main international airport and financial district, would be closed for testing from Monday morning until April 1.
On April 1, the western half of the city, known as Puxi and containing the historical Bund river bank, will go into lockdown until April 5, the government added.
Residents have been told to stay indoors during the lockdown and all business and government employees not involved in the delivery of essential services have been advised to work from home.
People involved in the provision of essential services such as gas, electricity, transport, sanitation and food supplies would be exempt from the stay-at-home order.
The Shanghai Public Security Bureau said it would close river bridges and tunnels and highway tollbooths in the city’s eastern districts until April 1. Similar restrictions will apply to areas west of the Huangpu River from April 1-5.
On Saturday, a member of the city’s pandemic task force had vowed Shanghai would not shut down.
“If Shanghai, our city, came to a complete standstill, many international cargo ships would be floating in the East China Sea,” said Wu Fan, a medical expert with the taskforce, during a daily news briefing by the virus city government.
“This would have an impact on the entire national economy and the world economy.”
Barriers have been erected in Shanghai as the city is split in two for an immediate lockdown. Photo: Aly Song/ReutersChina’s government had previously kept the virus under control nationwide through strict zero-tolerance measures including mass lockdowns of entire cities and provinces for even small numbers of cases.
But authorities have watched nervously as a deadly omicron surge in Hong Kong sparked panic buying and claimed high numbers of unvaccinated elderly people in the southern Chinese city.
The subsequent spread of the variant in mainland China has left authorities with a dilemma struggling to determine how vigorously to respond, with the zero-tolerance approach increasingly popular amid concerns about the economic impact and public “pandemic fatigue”. question is asked, especially given the less severe symptoms of Omicron.
Shanghai had tried to alleviate disruption with a targeted approach to the current outbreak, which has featured rolling 48-hour lockdowns on individual neighborhoods combined with large-scale testing, but has otherwise kept the city going.
But the softer strategy has so far failed to dampen case numbers in cities, and localized lockdowns have prompted grumbling online and food rushes in some counties.
Agence-France Presse and Reuters contributed to this report