Shanghai to lock down half city in turns for mass Covid test

Shanghai will lock down each half of the mega city in turns to conduct a mass testing blitz as authorities scramble to staunch a spiraling virus outbreak in the financial hub and beyond. 

The city of 25 million people will first lock down areas east of the Huangpu River, which includes its financial district and industrial parks, for four days starting Monday. Then the lockdown will start in the city’s west for another four days, according to a Sunday statement from local government.

Residents will be barred from leaving home and public transport and car-hailing services will be suspended, while private cars will not be allowed on the roads unless necessary, the statement said.

The sweeping restrictions come as China experiences its worst Covid spread since Wuhan, with 5,550 local Covid-19 cases reported for Saturday. Authorities locked down the tech hub of Shenzhen in the south earlier this month, while more than 3,200 kilometers (2,000 miles) to the north, Jilin, which borders Russia, saw its capital city shut on March 11 and days later the entire province sealed off.

Infections in Shanghai, home to the Chinese headquarters of many international companies and the country’s largest port, have surged in recent days despite repeated and expanded testing across the metropolis. The financial hub reported 2,676 new infections Saturday, a jump of 18% from a day earlier, overtaking Jilin as the nation’s biggest Covid hot spot.

The lockdowns in Shenzhen and now Shanghai, two of China’s most economically significant cities, show the growing toll -- and challenge -- of maintaining a zero-tolerance approach to the virus amid more transmissible variants. While most countries have started to live alongside Covid, China’s strategy of closed borders, mandatory quarantines and mass testing is becoming more difficult by the day. 

For Shanghai, the latest restrictions mark a departure from the city’s previous approach, which was more targeted when it came to curbs and testing. Officials had resisted full-blown lockdowns to avoid disruption to businesses, only to see the highly infectious omicron variant spreading more widely in the community.

As Covid cases started to rise this month, Shanghai reacted by shutting all schools and suspending all cross-province bus services. An increasing number of residential towers aorund the city have been sealed sporadically over the past few days due to suspected cases.

In its statement released on Sunday night, Shanghai government said it will ensure basic supplies such as electricity, fuel as well as food during the broader lockdowns next week.

But the surprise announcement immediately sparked a new round of rush among residents for groceries as they seek to stock up on necessities ahead of the restriction, which is scheduled to start at 5am.

Over the past week, many Shanghai residents had scrambled to hoard supplies due to uncertainties about when they’ll be released from the lockdown of their residential compounds and the unreliability of delivery apps. Shanghai police detained two men last week on suspicion of spreading rumors that the entire city was headed into a full-lown lockdown.

In the announcement, Shanghai government stressed that citizens’ emergency medical needs must be guaranteed during the lockdown, in an apparent bid to avoid the devastating consequence caused by restrictions last week.

A Shanghai nurse died of asthma Wednesday night after being turned away from Shanghai East Hospital as the emergency department was closed for disinfection under Covid control rules and she subsequently died in another hospital, according to a statement from the medical center in the city’s Pudong district.