The deputy mayor of the city of Shanghai, Chen Tong, announced on Sunday (15) a progressive reopening of commercial establishments from Monday (16), but without specifying how it will happen and what the conditions will be, at a time of increasing irritation among residents of the Chinese city after many weeks of strict confinement.
China, which is facing the worst outbreak of the epidemic since the first wave of Covid in 2020, decreed a confinement in early April in the metropolis, the main focus of contagions. Some of its 25 million inhabitants were already in their homes before the date.
Exasperated by the problems of providing fresh food, accessing medical care and sending infected people to quarantine centers, many residents expressed their unease on the internet.
In China, the relaxation of restrictions is usually conditional on the eradication of infections among the population and on not registering any positive case for three days, not counting people isolated in quarantine centers.
Shanghai officials announced that they were confident of reaching this level “by mid-May”.
The epidemic is in decline: this Sunday, 1,369 new positive cases were recorded in the city, against more than 25,000 every 24 hours at the end of April.
More of 1,000 kilometers to the north, the capital Beijing lives with the fear of a confinement after the detection of more than 1,000 cases since the end of last month.
The city has organized large-scale tests with residents on several occasions, decreed the confinement of buildings with positive cases and closed subway stations and stores considered non-essential in some neighborhoods.
To curb the contagion, the Fangshan district, southwest of Beijing and with 1.3 million inhabitants, suspended the circulation of taxis on Saturday.
But, with the exception of some confined areas, the vast majority of the capital’s 22 million residents are still able to leave their homes, although many public spaces are closed and several residents have been forced to resume teleworking.
