Shanghai starts China's biggest Covid-19 lockdown in 2 years

China began its most extensive lockdown in two years Monday to conduct mass testing and control a growing outbreak in Shanghai as questions are raised about the economic toll of the nations zeroCovid strategyChinas financial capital and largest city with 26 million people Shanghai had managed its smaller past outbreaks with limited lockdowns of housing compounds and workplaces where the virus was spreading But the citywide lockdown that will conducted in two phases will be Chinas most extensive since the central city of Wuhan where the virus was first detected in late 2019 confined its 11 million people to their homes for 76 days in early 2020Shanghais Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from Monday to Friday as mass testing gets underway the local government said In the second phase of the lockdown the vast downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will start its own fiveday lockdown FridayResidents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspendedAlready many communities within Shanghai have been locked down for the past week with their housing compounds blocked off with blue and yellow plastic barriers and residents required to submit to multiple tests for Covid19 Shanghais Disneyland theme park is among the businesses that closed earlier Automaker Tesla is also suspending production at its Shanghai plant according to media reportsPanicbuying was reported on Sunday with supermarket shelves cleared of food beverages and household items Additional barriers were being erected in neighborhoods Monday with workers in hazmat suits staffing checkpointsShanghai detected another 3500 cases of infection on Sunday though all but 50 were people who tested positive for the coronavirus but were not showing symptoms of Covid19 While people who are asymptomatic can still infect others China categorizes such cases separately from confirmed cases those in people who are sick leading to much lower totals in daily reportsNationwide 1219 new confirmed cases of domestic infection were detected on Sunday more than 1000 of them in the northeastern province of Jilin along with 4996 asymptomatic cases the National Health Commission reported on MondayChina has reported more than 56000 confirmed cases nationwide this month with the surge in Jilin accounting for most of themJilin province is enforcing travel bans and partial lockdowns in several cities including Changchun one of the centers of the Chinese auto industry Although the province has seen more than 1000 new confirmed cases per day prevention and control measures taken there do not appear to have been as extreme as in other placesAs has become customary Jilin has been building prefabricated temporary wards to house Covid19 patients and those under observation as suspected cases The city of Suzhou about an hour from Shanghai as well as Changsha in the countrys center and Shenyang in the northeast are also erecting such structures capable of housing more than 6000 peopleChina has called its longstanding zerotolerance approach the most economical and effective prevention strategy against Covid19The new measures being enforced in Shanghai aim to curb the virus spread protect peoples life and health and achieve the dynamic zeroCovid target as soon as possible the citys Covid19 prevention and control office stated in an announcement Sunday eveningThat requires lockdowns and mass testing with close contacts often being quarantined at home or in a central government facility The strategy focuses on eradicating community transmission of the virus as quickly as possibleWhile officials including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have encouraged more targeted measures local officials tend to take a more extreme approach concerned with being fired or otherwise punished over accusations of failing to prevent outbreaksMost recently Hunan province which has seen relatively few cases ordered punishments against 19 officials for failure to vigorously consolidate antipandemic policies state broadcaster CCTV reported MondayWith Chinas economic growth already slowing the extreme measures are seen as worsening difficulties hitting employment consumption and even global supply chains With a 21day curfew in place for all foreigners arriving from abroad travel between China and other countries has fallen dramaticallyOn Friday the International Air Transport Association announced it was moving its annual general meeting from Shanghai to Doha citing continuing Covid19 related restrictions on travel to ChinaIt is deeply disappointing that we are not able to meet in Shanghai as planned IATA Director General Willie Walsh said in a news releaseStill Shanghais announcement of the dates when the two lockdowns would be lifted appeared to show a further refinement in Chinas approach Previous citywide lockdowns had been openendedAlthough Chinas vaccination rate is around 87per cent it is considerably lower among older peopleNational data released earlier this month showed that over 52 million people aged 60 and older have yet to be vaccinated with any Covid19 vaccine Booster rates are also low with only 564per cent of people between 6069 having received a booster shot and 484per cent of people between 7079 having received oneOlder and unvaccinated people are more likely to become seriously ill if they contract the virusThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever