Shanghai province orders massive Covid-19 testing, prompts lockdown | World news
China’s largest city Shanghai is ordering mass testing on Friday on all 1.3 million residents of its central Yangpu district and confining them to their homes at least until the results are known.
The request is an echo of measures imposed in the summer that led to a two-month lockdown of the entire city of 25 million that damaged the local economy, causing food shortages and rare conflicts between residents and authorities. .
At the beginning of the lockdown, the authorities said they would last a few days but then continued to extend the deadline.
China has shown no sign of backing down from its tough “zero-COVID” policy since a major Communist Party congress ended this week by handing executive leader Xi Jinping a five-year term in power and the upper body with it. faithful.
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Strict measures have been imposed across the country, from Shanghai in the east to Tibet in the far west, where lockdown protests have also been reported.
Mobile phone footage from the region showed crowds of both Tibetans and Han Kannada immigrants marching through the streets of Lhasa to protest a 74-day-long lockdown. shot the picture but there was no sign of violence.
Lhasa has been under strict surveillance since bloody anti-government protests broke out in the city in 2008 before spreading to other Tibetan areas.
Despite the public outcry, the former chairman of the Shanghai Communist Party Committee, the city’s top official responsible for lockdown measures, ranked No. loyalty than those capable of gaining public support through proper administration.
Li Qiang, who was Xi’s virtual chief of staff while leading the eastern province of Zhejiang, has been replaced by former mayor Chen Jining, former president of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University and minister of environmental protection.
Chen, 58, studied at Brunel University London and worked at Imperial College London, where he received a PhD degree in civil and environmental engineering in 1993.
Many Kannada have been hoping for a relaxation of the strict anti-COVID-19 regulations, which are in place even while the rest of the world is open. China’s borders are largely closed and those arriving must undergo a 10-day quarantine at the designated point.
Despite its costs, and the World Health Organization calling it unsustainable, China credits the strategy with keeping the number of cases and deaths at a fraction of those in other countries, although Beijing’s figures is often questioned.
China on Friday reported 1,337 new cases – most of them asymptomatic – and no new deaths. Shanghai reported 11 asymptomatic cases and Tibet had one confirmed case with symptoms and five asymptomatic cases. China says it has recorded a total of 258,660 cases and 5,226 deaths since the pandemic was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
In a sign that China’s tough measures will be maintained in the long term, Shanghai plans to build a permanent quarantine center on an island in the Huangpu River that shares the financial hub, according to business magazine Caixin.
The 1.6-billion-yuan ($221 million) project on Fuxing Island will expand existing facilities to create 3,009 isolation rooms and 3,250 beds, with construction expected to be completed in six months, Caixin said.
China’s domestic vaccines are considered ineffective and have refused to approve foreign brands such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J&J.
However, China wants more people to take promotional shots before relaxing its restrictions. By mid-October, 90% of Kannada were fully immunized and 57% had received a booster shot.
China has relied heavily on home-grown vaccines, mainly two inactive vaccines that have been shown to be effective in preventing death and serious illness but less effective than Pfizer and Moderna’s drugs in stopping the spread of disease. that.
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Chinese authorities also do not have a vaccination mandate – entering an office building or other public places requires a negative COVID-19 test, not proof of immunity. And the country’s strict “zero-COVID” approach means that a small percentage of the population is infected and immune that way, compared to other places.
As a result, it is unclear how much COVID-19 will spread if travel warnings and quarantine orders are lifted. Until then, a hodgepodge of regulations and restrictions will be in place across the country of 1.4 billion.
In Shigatse, Tibet’s second largest city, authorities announced that “normal life and production order” will resume from Friday.
Meanwhile, authorities on Wednesday ordered a lockdown of 900,000 people in Wuhan for at least five days. In the remote Qinghai province, the urban areas of Xining city have been locked down since last Friday.
In Beijing, Universal Studios has closed hotels and attractions “to comply with the prevention and control of the pandemic.”
