Shanghai, which has been blocked from the rest of the country as part of tougher measures across the city since the outbreak of the Wuhan virus, reported 24,952 new cases on Sunday. The prolonged lockdown in Shanghai, China’s largest city and top economic hub, is the biggest test of Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy, which aims to eradicate the virus through traffic restrictions, mass testing and central patient quarantine. Sunday’s figures, which refer to cases from the previous day, came after city authorities announced a new round of mass trials as more than 26 million residents remain confined to their homes with an uncertain release date. Complaints about access to food have become widespread on social media. Zong Ming, Shanghai’s deputy mayor, said the community lockdowns would be lifted if they did not report any positive cases for 14 days. After weeks of blocking individual buildings, the city began a two-stage lockdown on March 28. It was originally supposed to last four days in each half of the city, it has since been extended.
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China’s strategy has successfully curbed the spread of the virus for more than two years, according to official figures, but an outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant in Shanghai is now proving effective. Despite the high economic and social costs, the Beijing government has reaffirmed its commitment to rapprochement. Shanghai represents the vast majority of the 26,462 cases reported Sunday across the country. Official figures show that 95 percent of the cases were asymptomatic, which China treats as a separate category. In response to Omicron, officials urged that the virus be stopped earlier. Guangzhou, another of China’s largest cities with a population of 18 million, reported two new confirmed cases as of Saturday morning and will also begin mass testing, state media reported. Last week, Nomura analysts estimated that nearly 200 million people in 23 Chinese cities are subject to partial or complete lockdowns. Unreliable deliveries of government food packages and difficulties in securing orders through excessive shopping applications have encouraged Shanghai residents to organize group purchases directly from suppliers. Lucy Lou, a 41-year-old Shanghai resident, said she and her parents had been in full quarantine since March 19 and had only received one package of food distributed by local officials in the past 20 days. He set up a chat team to buy milk, but had to cancel the order after the neighborhood committee refused to help with a courier, citing risks of contamination. The city has built huge quarantine centers for asymptomatic patients. On Friday, the US government warned against traveling to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Jilin, another city with a recent outbreak, due to “arbitrary enforcement of local laws and restrictions related to Covid-19”. The acceleration of its zero Covid policies by China comes at a precarious time for its economy, which is struggling with the impact of a liquidity crisis in its real estate sector.
