The city of Shanghai, China’s financial hub that has been under a strict lockdown for more than six weeks, announced this Tuesday (17) that it has reached the goal of “zero Covid” – Beijing’s strategy that aims to completely eliminate the spread of the coronavirus. which is questioned by world health authorities.
The announcement came after the region of 25 million inhabitants did not register, for three consecutive days, new symptomatic cases of the disease outside the areas delimited for quarantine. “Shanghai’s 16 districts have already achieved ‘Covid zero,'” Health Commission deputy director Zhao Dandan told a news conference.
New daily cases fell for the fourth day in a row. Official data shows 823 infections in the last 24 hours, 12.3% less than the day before. The total death toll reached 576 – less than 0.1% of the 621,000 residents of the city who were infected by the virus – according to information from the South China Morning Post.
Over the past few days, local officials have promised a return to what they called pre-Covid normal life by June 1. In what was the clearest reopening calendar to date, Zong Ming, the deputy mayor, said the city began reopening supermarkets and pharmacies this week, but that restrictions on street movement are expected to remain in place until at least the 21st. .
After that date, public transport services and domestic flights will gradually resume, but the population will still have to present a test with a negative result for Covid carried out up to 48 hours before boarding to use the transport.
The announcement of the “Covid zero” goal and the reopening calendar were met with skepticism from residents, who accumulated criticism over the weeks of lockdown. Reports show lack of food supply, disrespect for privacy and precarious conditions in sick treatment centers.
“We’ve been locked in the house for two months; this story [de Covid zero] it’s only for non-Shanghai people,” one user wrote on a social network, according to a report by the Reuters news agency. The comment was later deleted from the platform.
According to the City Hall, 3.8 million inhabitants remain under a severe form of confinement, such as the ban on leaving their residential area. The data, however, was questioned by many people, who believe that the real number is much higher.
“If society has reached a level of ‘Zero Covid’, why can residents of Songjiang district only go out every two days?” wrote a user on the social network Weibo, according to AFP. Another person asked if this isn’t a “Shanghai from a parallel universe”.
Figures released this week draw the size of the impact on the economy from the weeks-long lockdown in Shanghai and one-off restrictions in other major cities. Beijing, for example, saw retail sales drop 16% in April, according to Reuters calculations. Real estate sales plummeted 26%.
The capital of 22 million people, by the way, sees the regime tightening sanitary rules, with residents fearing a severe confinement like that of Shanghai. The most recent daily balance of new cases was 52, and large-scale testing has been carried out daily.
Food services are banned, with some malls and businesses closed. Public transport was reduced, and many residents were advised to work from home. Residents of the Fengtai district were banned from leaving their neighborhoods on Tuesday.
Pressure on the regime led by Xi Jinping is expected to increase with the announcement, made this Monday (16), that the first case of the more transmissible subvariant BA.2.12.1 of the omicron strain was identified in the Asian country. The information was confirmed by the CCDC (Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention).
According to available information, he is a 27-year-old Chinese man who landed in Guangdong province on April 23 from Nairobi, Kenya. Like the other passengers, he was transferred to a hotel for a two-week quarantine. After confirming that he had Covid, tests showed, on the 30th, that it was an infection with the BA.2.12.1 variant.
“Compared to other subvariants of the omicron, this one shows greater immune escape, even after people have been vaccinated with the booster dose,” the CCDC said in the statement. About 53% of the Chinese population received the booster dose of the immunizer.
Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s National Health Commission, said more testing booths would be built so that residents could access them in 15-minute walks in all provincial capitals and cities with more than 10 million people.
In all, China reported 1,227 new cases of the disease, between symptomatic and asymptomatic, on Monday. The figure is the lowest since February 19, CCDC data show. Four new deaths from Covid were recorded.
