The Chinese government has extended a lockdown in Shanghai today to cover all of the city’s 26 million people after testing showed some spread of Covid, but despite the fact that the latest results revealed only 268 symptomatic daily cases in the massive city.
Dealing with Covid in Shanghai has become a major test of China’s zero-tolerance strategy to eliminate the virus. Recently, outbreaks in Shanghai had been labeled as the worst Covid outbreak in China since the original Wuhan outbreak.
The city had initially been locked down in halves at first, with the eastern half first locking down to begin testing, followed by the western half. The government then widened the lockdown to eastern parts of the city and extended until further notice the restrictions currently in the western part of the city, which were supposed to end today.
Tough restrictions imposed last week came following the more targeted approach.
This broader and more sweeping lockdown came after test results returned a surge in asymptomatic cases to more than 13,000. But symptomatic cases fell yesterday, down to 268, from 425 on Sunday.
Shanghai’s public has expressed frustration with the blanket lockdown, but Chinese authorities show no sign of wavering. Officials said that Shanghai’s epidemic prevention and control is currently at its most difficult and most critical stage, and therefore there must be a general policy of “dynamic clearance.”
The quarantine policy for the financial city has been criticized for putting people with asymptomatic cases among people with symptomatic cases, and for even going as far as to separate children from parents in doing so.
Residents of Shanghai organized a petition online that calls for asymptomatic children to be able to isolate themselves at home with their families, but the petition suddenly became unable to access on the WeChat messaging app as of today.
Be the first to comment