Shanghai has become a ghost town. 130 million elderly people are now at risk in China.
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– This came on abruptly. The pandemic is ruining all my plans.
Zhang Lanlan was in hospital with her newborn baby when she had a difficult choice this weekend, she tells the Chinese newspaper Sixth Tone.
Should she and the baby leave the building immediately? The alternative was to pay 14,000 kroner to stay in the hospital until Friday.
As long as the corona quarantine lasts in the part of Shanghai she lives in.
After several weeks of more cautious measures, the Chinese authorities this weekend chose to shut down the country’s largest city from Monday morning. 25 million people have to stay at home. To achieve this, the city is divided into two:
First, everyone in the eastern part will be quarantined until Friday. Then there are people in the western part who have to lockdown.
Cabbage head for 90 kroner
The news was a surprise to most when it was announced on Sunday. The day before, local authorities had rejected that it would happen – because a closure would have too great financial consequences.
The announcement of a Shanghai lockdown led to people flocking to the shops to secure food and other necessary goods. In an instant, prices exploded. In social media, people show examples, such as one cabbage head for 90 kroner. Videos from supermarkets tell of empty shelves and great frustration.
“People are behaving like robbers,” 43-year-old Ren Xiaowen told the Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post. By then he had just spent half an hour in the chaos of a supermarket in Shanghai.
Videos on social media also testify approach to panic at the apartment blocks where people are now being detained. In the videos you can see how people crowd together and try to break out through the gates outside the blocks they live in.
At the same time, banking and finance workers are trying to keep the economic wheels in China’s response to Wall Street. Around 20,000 people now sleep in the workplace so that they can continue to work through the shutdown, he writes Reuters.
6000 camp beds on the exhibition floor
The reason for the rapid shutdown is probably that infection rates in Shanghai have risen very rapidly in recent days. On Sunday, 3450 new cases were reported in the city. That was 70 percent of all new cases across China, according to the country’s health authorities. On Monday, Shanghai numbers were even higher.
The emergency solutions are many. The city’s large conference and exhibition center, known as the Shanghai Expo, has now been turned into a giant dormitory for quarantined people. The building can accommodate 6,000 people, writes the Chinese news service CGTN.
In November, the same halls were filled with expensive, new luxury products at the big import fair. Among other things, the car manufacturer Tesla showed off several of its electric cars.
Now Tesla’s factory in Shanghai is temporarily closed, according to Reuters. And the exhibition hall is full of people on simple camp beds.
To remedy the huge financial costs of the Shanghai shutdown, the authorities have already announced major rescue packages. A combination of tax cuts and other measures has a total price tag for the authorities of as much as 190 billion kroner, according to South China Morning Post.
– The goal is to avoid redundancies, says Ruan Qing at the city’s reform and development commission to the newspaper.
130 million elderly at risk
The closure is costing China dearly. But the alternative can be far more expensive. For two years, a zero tolerance for the virus has contributed to elderly and unvaccinated Chinese being spared from getting coronary heart disease. The rapid spread of the virus in recent weeks means that many of these vulnerable residents are now at risk.
At least 130 million Chinese over the age of 60 are either unvaccinated or have received less than three doses of the vaccine, according to a study from the University of Hong Kong. It writes the British newspaper Financial Times.
This group is at greater risk than others if they become infected with the virus because they are not fully protected by the vaccine. It is also unclear whether the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine, which most people have taken in China, is as effective as the mRNA vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna.
–The Chinese are now holding their breath to see if the closure of Shanghai and other cities will be enough to keep the omikron at bay.
And Zhang Lanlan, who became a mother at a Shanghai hospital last week? She chose to pay what it costs to stay there until the quarantine period is over.
– I am lucky compared to people who will give birth now in the next couple of days. They have to deal with much more uncertainty and worry, she tells Sixth Tone.
And adds:
– Some of them checked in at the maternity ward or at hotels outside the quarantine zone in advance. Then they do not have to be trapped in their apartment blocks.
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