By Brenda Goh and Tony Munroe
SHANGHAI/BEIJING – Shanghai will begin gradually reopening businesses such as shopping malls and beauty salons in China’s financial hub from Monday, after weeks of strict lockdown due to coronavirus outbreaks. COVID-19, while the rest of the country struggled to curb the resistant omicron variant.
Nearly shut down for more than six weeks, Shanghai is tightening restrictions in some areas that it hopes will mark a final push in its campaign against the virus, which has angered and exhausted residents of China’s largest and most cosmopolitan city.
Shopping malls, department stores and supermarkets will begin to resume store operations and allow customers to shop “in an orderly manner,” while beauty salons and vegetable markets will reopen with limited capacity, Vice Mayor Chen said. Tong at a news conference on Sunday.
He gave no details on the pace or scope of the reopenings, and many residents of the city of 25 million people reacted skeptically.
“Who are you lying to? We can’t even leave our compound. You can open, no one can go,” said a Twitter-like Weibo user from China, whose IP was shown to be from Shanghai.
During Shanghai’s lockdown, residents have mostly confined themselves to shopping for necessities, with normal online shopping largely suspended due to a shortage of dispatchers.
And while stylists have been cutting hair on the street or in open areas of housing complexes, residents who have recently been able to leave their homes for short walks or grocery shopping are generally looking more disheveled than usual.
In a hopeful sign, Shanghai’s subway operator has started testing trains on its vast network in preparation for reopening, a local government media outlet reported, but gave no indication when it will do so.
Shanghai residents have been frustrated by unclear or inconsistent rules as the city takes tentative steps to ease its policy.
FOCUSEXTRAORDINARY
China’s strict policy towards the COVID has put hundreds of millions of people in dozens of cities under restrictions of varying degrees, in a bid to eliminate the spread of the disease.
The restrictions are wreaking havoc on the world’s second-largest economy and rattling global supply chains, even as most countries try to return to normal life despite ongoing infections.
New bank lending hit its lowest level in nearly four-and-a-half years in April as the pandemic rattled the economy and weakened demand for credit, central bank data showed on Friday.
The Asian Football Confederation said on Saturday that China withdrew from hosting the 2023 Asian Cup final due to the COVIDthe latest in a wave of sporting event cancellations by China and sparking speculation on social media that its zero policy could persist well into next year.
China managed to keep the COVID after it was discovered in Wuhan in late 2019, but has had trouble containing the highly infectious omicron variant. The World Health Organization said last week that China’s approach was not “sustainable.”
Still, China is expected to maintain its policy at least until the ruling Communist Party’s historically autumn congress, where President Xi Jinping is poised to secure an already unprecedented third term.
Despite the interruptions, no senior Chinese official has spoken publicly against a policy of COVID-19 that Beijing defends as a lifeline.
In Beijing, where restaurants have closed for dinner, several districts on Sunday extended work-from-home guidance and authorities announced three more days of mass daily testing for most residents.
Beijing said it found 55 new cases in the 24 hours to 0700 GMT Sunday, 10 of whom were outside the areas being quarantined. The city strives to eradicate community infections.
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