- Some stretched for hundreds of meters in the blazing summer heat, and others lasted late into the night, according to videos posted by residents on social media.
- Many residents are still haunted by fears of a renewed lockdown.
- Shanghai’s poorly managed lockdown led to widespread food shortages and a lack of access to medical care, causing an outpouring of anger and frustration among residents.
Only a day after city-wide restrictions were eased, some neighbourhoods in Shanghai were placed under lockdown again, as China’s draconian zero-Covid strategy continues to plague the financial capital as reported by CNN.
High risk
Shanghai lifted its two-month lockdown on Wednesday, allowing most of its 25 million residents to leave their communities.
But nearly 2 million people were still confined to their homes in areas designated as “high risk” by the government.
At a news conference Thursday, Shanghai officials said seven new Covid cases were detected in the city’s Jing’an and Pudong districts, resulting in four neighbourhoods being swiftly sealed off and designated as “medium-risk areas” — meaning residents will be confined to their homes for 14 days.
Their 26 close contacts and 106 secondary contacts had been placed in a government quarantine, and more than 470,000 people had been tested, according to officials.
The sense of joy and relief from the lifting of the lockdown among residents soon turned into mounting frustration as long lines formed at testing sites across the city throughout Wednesday and Thursday.
Lack of resources & facilities
Some stretched for hundreds of meters in the blazing summer heat, and others lasted late into the night, according to videos posted by residents on social media.
A testing site put up a notice warning residents the wait could take four and a half hours.
Shanghai officials on Thursday acknowledged and apologized for the long wait, citing a lack of resources and facilities — despite authorities having built more than 10,000 testing sites and trained thousands of workers to swab throats.
Many residents are still haunted by fears of a renewed lockdown.
On Thursday morning, crowds were filmed fleeing from the International Finance Center Mall in the Lujiazui financial district after it suddenly stopped people from entering or exiting — a common practice at venues where positive cases are found, according to videos circulating on social media.
Frustration among residents
The mall later issued a notice saying it had reopened at 12.30 p.m. after carrying out full disinfection, without confirming whether there had been a positive Covid case at the site.
Shanghai’s poorly managed lockdown led to widespread food shortages and a lack of access to medical care, causing an outpouring of anger and frustration among residents.
But China’s leader Xi Jinping has vowed to carry on with the zero-Covid policy, even as the rest of the world learns to live with the virus and move on from the pandemic.
On Thursday, the People’s Daily — the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece — declared on its front page that “the battle to safeguard Shanghai has achieved major phased achievements” under the leadership of Xi.
“Shanghai is actively exploring new mechanisms for normalized prevention and control in the mega-city, and accelerating the return of economic and social development to the normal track,” it said.
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Source: CNN
