Shanghai’s outbreak, which began in March, is the worst China has seen since the first months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands of people have been infected and the city has banned residents from leaving their homes , the great anger of the public.
The outbreak in China’s most populous city and the risk of a spread to Beijing are testing the government’s zero-COVID approach in a year when Xi Jinping is set to secure an unprecedented third term as president.
Beijing, with dozens of daily infections in an outbreak now in its 10th day, has not locked down. Over 300 locally transmitted cases have been recorded since April 22.
But on Sunday, the capital tightened social distancing rules and launched a new round of mass testing in its most populous and hardest-hit district.
Last week, the city of 22 million carried out mass testing in most of its 16 districts, suspended all entertainment venues and banned dining in restaurants.
“The impact of all this on us is too great – 20,000 yuan ($3,000) in one day is gone, just like that!” said Jia, manager of a usually popular burger restaurant in eastern China. Beijing.
“Our boss is stressed by all this too,” Jia said, asking to be identified only by his last name. “We have three Shanghai branches. They are all closed and losing money for a month. And now a”.
Beijing’s sprawling Universal Studios theme park closed on Sunday, while in the much-visited section of the Badaling Great Wall, visitors were asked to present proof of negative COVID test results before entering.
Chaoyang district, which accounts for the largest share of infections in Beijing’s outbreak, has launched an additional round of mass testing, with public health workers knocking on doors to remind residents to get tested.
“I take the PCR test every day and I know I’m not sick,” said a Chaoyang resident named Ma, whose local health app on her cellphone had marked her profile as abnormal.
“I feel caged, like I’m sick. These restrictions are too excessive,” said Ma, who works in finance.
COLRE SHANGHAI
The lockdown of the city of Shanghai since early April has upended the daily lives of its residents, sparking worries about food and fears of being taken to crowded quarantine centers if they came to catch the virus.
The extreme measures taken to seal off residential compounds, including fencing off building entrances, have sparked outrage.
Some residents took to social media to vent their frustration, others slammed pots from their windows, and still others clashed with public health officials.
The song “Do you hear the people sing?” from the musical Les Miserables has become a popular protest anthem. On Saturday, an online video of a Chinese orchestra performing the song, with the musicians performing from their respective homes, went viral with nearly 19,000 shares before being blocked.
While much of the city remains under lockdown, Shanghai officials, adopting a confident tone, said on Sunday that lockdowns in some areas would be eased after the city brought the risks of COVID transmission to the surface under control. community level, exclusion of cases in quarantine centres.
Six of its 16 districts have achieved “zero COVID” status, meaning three consecutive days with no new daily rise in infections, senior city official Gu Honghui said at a virtual press conference.
Public transport will be allowed to resume in five districts, but residents should stay in their neighborhoods when going to supermarkets, pharmacies and hospitals, a health official said at the press conference.
Posts on social media showed the streets of Fengxian, one of the six districts, filled with pedestrians and clogged with scooters and bicycles. Reuters could not independently verify these videos.
But despite the drop in transmissions, Shanghai will launch a new round of PCR and antigen tests across the city from Sunday until May 7.
Excluding imported cases arriving from outside the mainland, China reported 8,256 new local cases for Saturday, down from 10,703 the day before. Beijing has recorded 59 of the infections, while Shanghai has seen 7,872 new cases and the nation’s total of 38 deaths.
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