Shanghai has opted to expand Covid-19 mass testing, while also easing certain restrictions in localities that have not reported new instances in 14 days.
The new round of testing comes after the city recorded a new high of 23,600 cases on Saturday, the majority of which were asymptomatic. The number of symptomatic illnesses has risen to 1,015 from 824 instances on Friday, according to the most recent official statistics from local health officials.
Shanghai deputy mayor Zong Ming said on Saturday that the city will be divided into three zones based on the findings of the new round of testing: lockdown, control, and precaution. There will be distinct levels of danger and appropriate precautions in each zone.
“Based on the study and outcomes of the nucleic acid testing, we will create differentiated regulations with zoning and grading,” she stated.
During the press briefing, Ms Zong also recognised that the city’s management of the new Covid-19 epidemic had flaws. “A lot of our efforts have been insufficient, and there is still a significant gap between everyone’s expectations.” “We’ll do all we can to fix it,” she stated.
On March 28, China’s most populous city imposed a two-stage shutdown to undertake mass testing over a nine-day period in the wake of daily records of asymptomatic illnesses.
Following its failure to isolate Covid by closing down the city in phases, Beijing authorities interfered in Shanghai and demanded that the country adhere to its zero-tolerance policy to prevent the country’s medical system from collapsing. More than 10,000 health workers from throughout the country, including 2,000 military medical personnel, have been dispatched to Shanghai.
After officials prolonged the Covid lockdown indefinitely early this week, residents of the metropolis, which has a population of around 26 million, have complained of a scarcity of food and other essential necessities.
On Saturday, several inhabitants of housing compounds reported they had been told by municipal officials that if there had been no recent incidents, they may leave their homes and go for a walk in their neighbourhoods.
Meanwhile, Mr Zong stated that “epidemic prevention and control is currently at a critical juncture, and we cannot afford the slightest slack.”
Locals in Shanghai have taken to social media to express their dissatisfaction with the city’s severe lockdown measures. “You have to think about what else you can eat and how you can buy goods no matter where you live, whether you have money or not,” one user remarked.
“When used in China compared to the rest of the world, the term ‘lockdown’ may be extremely inaccurate,” Maya Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, was cited as saying by The Guardian, emphasising that it did not properly express the seriousness of the situation.
