Beijing And Shanghai Tighten Covid Restrictions Triggering More Discontent From Residents

Topline

China enacted tighter pandemic restrictions in two of its biggest cities—Beijing and Shanghai—on Monday in a renewed push to quash out the spread of Covid-19 in the two cities even as it faces growing resentment among residents and weakened trade.

Key Facts

According to China’s National Health Commission, Shanghai and Beijing added 49 and 3,947 new Covid-19 cases to their respective tallies on Monday.

New infections in the Chinese capital have largely remained steady, around 50 a day, while numbers have continued to decline in Shanghai.

However, the financial hub has continued to report new cases outside designated quarantine zones, which has prevented authorities from fully relaxing lockdown measures that have been in place for more than six weeks now.

According to Reuters, residents in at least four of Shanghai’s 16 districts received notices that they will no longer be able to leave their homes or receive deliveries as the city works towards the goal of zero community infections.

In Beijing, authorities have ordered residents of in the city’s worst-hit districts—including its most populous district Chaoyang—to work from home while several roads, public transport routes and parks were shut down.

The stringent measures have triggered increased discontent among residents some of whom with suspected infections are forced to give up the keys to their homes and enter a centralized quarantine facility.

Big Number

547. That’s the total number of deaths that the city of Shanghai has reported since the start of its current outbreak in March. The deaths reported in the city’s ongoing outbreak now accounts for more than 10% of all Covid-19 fatalities that China has reported since the start of the pandemic. Beijing has yet to report a single fatality from its current outbreak.

Tangent

The ongoing lockdown in China’s financial hub has had a major impact on the Chinese economy with the country reporting a sharp decline in export growth in April. Exports rose 3.7% year over year to $273.6 billion in April, a sharp decline from the 15.7% growth reported a month before that. Weakened demand meant that import growth stood at 0.7%, slightly down from 1% the previous month.

Key Background

Despite a lockdown that has lasted more than six weeks for millions of its residents, Shanghai has not been able to fully stomp out the spread of the virus, prompting frustration and anger. While cases in the city have dropped for 10 straight days, Shanghai’s mitigation measures were dealt a blow last week with new cases cropping up outside of sealed-off quarantine zones in the city. In a desperate bid to avoid Shanghai’s fate, Beijing has tried to stomp out the virus by carrying out three round of mass testing on its 21.5 million residents so far. The ongoing outbreak in the two cities has been fueled by the highly infectious BA.2 Omicron variant of the coronavirus. This has raised questions about the viability of China’s ‘zero-Covid’ approach, despite officials vowing to stick with it.

Section Title

‘Go home!’ COVID-hit Shanghai, Beijing tell residents to avoid social contacts (Reuters)

China trade weakens after cities shut down to fight virus (Associated Press)

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