China is again about to impose the biggest lockdown in the city of Shanghai due to the outburst of coronavirus cases after two years. The city will be locked down in two stages while testing is being done alongside. Although authorities resisted locking down the city, due to the high positivity rate, authorities appear to have changed course.
Shanghai is China's biggest city, with a population of 26 million, on the southeastern coast of China, and is a financial and business hub in the country. The city is also home to the world’s largest container-shipping port. It has been decided to impose a two-phased lock down in order to avoid disrupting the economy's growth too much.
The lockdown will happen in two stages, with the eastern side of the city, known as Pudong, under restrictions from Monday until April 1, and the western side, known as Puxi, from 1–5 April, municipal authorities stated.
According to the authorities, the city-wide lockdown prevention measures include a work-from-home policy, the suspension of public transportation, and the suspension of ride hailing. This is to control the disease's sudden rise in positivity rate.
Cross river-bridge travel, tunnels, and highway toll booths are banned and closed in the eastern district until 1 April, as stated by the public security bureau. Areas to the west of the Huangpu River will have similar restrictions imposed.
A medical expert, Wu Fan, on the taskforce during a daily virus press briefing said:
The Chinese authorities are continuously in trouble, and it is hard to maintain growth and corona surge control. The lockdown policy has helped China rebound from the initial shock of the pandemic in early 2020, with relatively few infections and deaths compared with other parts of the world.
China's government had previously kept the virus under control nationally through strict zero-tolerance measures, including mass lockdowns of entire cities and provinces for even small numbers of cases.
Due to the dense population of Shanghai, soft strategy has so far failed in controlling Coronavirus. Also, China’s vaccination rate is quite high at 87%, but it is lower in older people who are more likely to get severely ill if they get infected by this disease.
Shanghai reported 3,450 asymptomatic cases on Sunday, the most for any province-level region in mainland China. The city reported 50 new confirmed COVID-19 cases for that same day.
The city says that all 3,500 people who have been affected are getting treatment or being kept under medical observation in private.
The latest update on March 15 to the national policy for COVID-19 prevention and control said mild and asymptomatic cases can be managed at quarantine centers, rather than needing hospital care.
Image by soumen82hazra from Pixabay
Shanghai is China's biggest city, with a population of 26 million, on the southeastern coast of China, and is a financial and business hub in the country. The city is also home to the world’s largest container-shipping port. It has been decided to impose a two-phased lock down in order to avoid disrupting the economy's growth too much.
The lockdown will happen in two stages, with the eastern side of the city, known as Pudong, under restrictions from Monday until April 1, and the western side, known as Puxi, from 1–5 April, municipal authorities stated.
According to the authorities, the city-wide lockdown prevention measures include a work-from-home policy, the suspension of public transportation, and the suspension of ride hailing. This is to control the disease's sudden rise in positivity rate.
Cross river-bridge travel, tunnels, and highway toll booths are banned and closed in the eastern district until 1 April, as stated by the public security bureau. Areas to the west of the Huangpu River will have similar restrictions imposed.
A medical expert, Wu Fan, on the taskforce during a daily virus press briefing said:
"If Shanghai, this city of ours, came to a complete halt, there would be many international cargo ships floating in the East China Sea."
The Chinese authorities are continuously in trouble, and it is hard to maintain growth and corona surge control. The lockdown policy has helped China rebound from the initial shock of the pandemic in early 2020, with relatively few infections and deaths compared with other parts of the world.
China's government had previously kept the virus under control nationally through strict zero-tolerance measures, including mass lockdowns of entire cities and provinces for even small numbers of cases.
Due to the dense population of Shanghai, soft strategy has so far failed in controlling Coronavirus. Also, China’s vaccination rate is quite high at 87%, but it is lower in older people who are more likely to get severely ill if they get infected by this disease.
Shanghai reported 3,450 asymptomatic cases on Sunday, the most for any province-level region in mainland China. The city reported 50 new confirmed COVID-19 cases for that same day.
The city says that all 3,500 people who have been affected are getting treatment or being kept under medical observation in private.
The latest update on March 15 to the national policy for COVID-19 prevention and control said mild and asymptomatic cases can be managed at quarantine centers, rather than needing hospital care.