BEIJING (AP) — China began a lockdown in the city of Shanghai on Monday as part of its strict strategy to control the COVID-19 pandemic and amid questions about the economic impact of the country’s “zero contagion” strategy.
The Chinese financial capital and the largest in the country, with 26 million inhabitants, had managed previous outbreaks with limited quarantines of residential complexes and work zones where the virus was spreading. But the two-phase general lockdown will be the longest in the country since that of the central city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019 and 11 million people were confined to their homes for 76 days. in early 2020.
Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be under lockdown from Monday morning to Friday as diagnostic tests are carried out across the city, the local government said. In the second phase of the lockdown, the huge area west of the Huangpu River, which runs through the city, will start its own five-day lockdown from Friday.
To ensure there is no contact with the outside, residents will have to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints. Offices and all non-essential services will also be closed and public transport service will be suspended.
The city has already closed many communities, and its residents are required to undergo multiple tests for COVID-19. Among the businesses that have closed is the Disney theme park in Shanghai.
Panic buying was recorded on Sunday and some supermarkets were left with empty shelves of food, drink and household items. Additional barriers were erected in neighborhoods on Monday, with workers in protective suits at checkpoints.
On Sunday, Shanghai detected another 3,500 cases, of which 50 were from asymptomatic people. In China, these cases are classified separately from “confirmed cases”, those of sick people, so the totals are much lower in daily reports.
Across the country, 1,219 local infections were confirmed on Sunday, with more than 1,000 in the northeastern province of Jilin, along with 4,996 asymptomatic cases, the National Health Commission reported on Monday.
This month, China reported more than 56,000 infections across the country, the majority in Jilin.
To deal with its biggest outbreak in two years, China is maintaining what it calls the “proactive zero COVID” approach, which it sees as the cheapest and most effective prevention strategy against COVID-19.
To achieve this, massive lockdowns and testing are necessary, and close contacts are often quarantined at home or in a government facility. The strategy focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as soon as possible, sometimes involving the closure of entire cities.
While authorities, including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, have pushed for more targeted measures, local officials tend to take a more extreme approach for fear of being fired or punished over allegations of failure to prevent buds.
With economic growth slowing in China, extreme measures are seen as worsening difficulties hitting employment, consumption and even supply chains globally.
While China’s vaccination rate hovers around 87%, the percentage is considerably lower among the elderly.
National data released earlier this month shows that more than 52 million people age 60 and older have yet to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Booster rates are also low, with only 56.4% of people aged 60-69 having received a booster shot, and 48.4% of people aged 70-79 having received a dose.
–
