Queue outside a hospital in Shanghai. /
China does not change its ‘Covid 0’ policy to try to eradicate the contagious Omicron variant
As if two years had not passed since the lockdown of Wuhan that marked the outbreak of the pandemic, Shanghai will also be confined to try to contain its latest and largest outbreak of the coronavirus. As announced by the Chinese authorities this Sunday, the measure will be carried out in two phases over the next nine days and following the division of the city marked by the Huang Pu River. First, the modern area of Pudong will be closed, from this Monday to Friday, April 1, and then the historic neighborhoods of Puxi, from that day until the early hours of Tuesday, April 5. During that time, the objective is to carry out several rounds of tests of the coronavirus to the 25 million inhabitants of Shanghai, the economic capital of China.
Until now, the authorities have resisted a total confinement due to its strong national and global economic impact, since they will have to close all their factories and also their important port, the first in the world in merchandise traffic and through which more pass each year. of 43 million containers. But finally they have decided to repeat the same temporary confinement that the southern city of Shenzhen followed last week, with 17 million inhabitants and partially reopened on Monday.
The change is due to the fact that the closures of neighborhoods and urbanizations ordered this month to contain their outbreak of the coronavirus, which is only growing, are not working. In its last count, which corresponds to Saturday, Shanghai already surpassed the closed province of Jilin in the number of total cases. Compared to its 2,078 infections (1,071 with symptoms and 1,007 without them), Shanghai reported 2,678 infections. Of these, 47 had symptoms and 2,631 were on the list of what the Chinese government considers asymptomatic, which will surely include those with minor ailments. But such a different proportion of symptomatic and asymptomatic between Jilin and Shanghai, and the drastic decision to close this megalopolis, once again cast doubt on the official data from China. In total, the country registered 5,072 cases on Saturday, one of its highest figures since it controlled the outbreak of the pandemic in Wuhan two years ago. Now, as if time had not passed since then, it borders Shanghai.