Pudong and Puxi, the two main areas of Shanghai, will be consecutively locked down for mass testing: Pudong for four days starting on March 28; followed by Puxi starting on April 1. This means that half of the city will continue working, while the other half is locked down for testing. Residents will be confined to their residential compounds and all public transport, including buses, metro lines, taxis and ferries as well as privately owned vehicles will be barred from the roads. Meal delivery and courier services will remain operating with non-contact delivery to ensure the availability of basic life necessities.
The lockdown orders are set to disrupt operations at key facilities, from the Yangshan container port and Pudong International Airport to Tesla’s Gigafactory and production at SMIC, China’s biggest chip maker. All companies based in Pudong would be allowed to operate either under the “closed loop” system or on a work-from-home basis. The surprise decision came after repeated assurances by city officials that Shanghai would not go into lockdown.
On March 27, Shanghai reported 45 confirmed cases and 2,631 asymptomatic cases, the highest daily number in the whole of China. From March 1 to March 26, the total number of positive tests reported in Shanghai reached 12,513. The number of patients and those with asymptomatic infections being sent into isolation in Shanghai is putting pressure on the healthcare system. Zhang Wenhong, who leads an expert panel on Covid-19 control and treatment in Shanghai, said the city had to be pragmatic given how easily Omicron spreads. “But this virus has shown unprecedented transmissibility compared to previous strains, and still our control measures have stopped exponential transmission,” he said, adding that the city would have seen tens of thousands of infections if the transmission chain had not been cut by targeted measures.
Authorities have sought to minimize disruptions while sticking to the country’s dynamic zero-Covid strategy, imposing targeted lockdowns when cases emerge. At least 41 medical institutes in Shanghai have been suspending certain services due to Covid-19. Shanghai has taken measures to ensure all of the city’s residents are being tested. Those who fail to do so will receive a yellow health QR code. The codes can only turn green in 24 hours after the residents finish the test. The city completed more than 30 million tests between March 18 and 20. The percentage of new infections among people not in quarantined areas has dropped to about 10%, which proved the city’s grid screening strategy has been effective.
China will only consider adjusting its strict virus response after overall conditions change at home and overseas, according to Liang Wannian, head of the expert panel leading China’s Covid-19 response. Those conditions included having better tools to fight the virus, the prevalence of a less dangerous strain and the pandemic becoming less serious abroad. “I know everyone is hoping for the pandemic to end soon, but the viruses and diseases themselves do not depend on our will,” Liang said. He added that potential developments included the virus mutating into a weaker pathogen with lower transmissibility and virulence, posing less danger to health and life. This would be the best-case scenario. Another possibility was that vaccines became so effective they prevented not only severe illness and death, but stopped infection altogether. Future Covid-19 drugs might block the disease at an early stage, Liang said. “Globally, the epidemic in other countries should decrease and ease pressure on us to prevent outbreaks coming from overseas,” he added. “If we stop all containment measures now, it means all the previous efforts are for nothing,” Liang said.
Although the Omicron variant – dominant in China’s latest Covid-19 outbreak – is milder, it spreads much faster and can cause a large number of infections and deaths given China’s huge population, health experts said. So achieving dynamic zero-Covid in a short time is still the most effective epidemic containment measure with the least amount of cost, they said. Wu Zunyou said at a news conference that asymptomatic cases can turn into mild or more severe cases very quickly, so more attention should be paid to the infectiousness of the Omicron variant. “Only by sticking to the dynamic zero-Covid policy can the country prevent a large number of infections from taking up too many medical resources,” Wu said.
About 212 million of the 264 million Chinese seniors age 60 and above have been fully vaccinated, according to Wang Huaqing, Chief Immunization Expert at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He added that there is no data to claim that seniors above 80 have a higher chance of experiencing adverse effects from inoculation. As of March 24, China had administered over 3.24 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines, and more than 1.24 billion people had been fully vaccinated, accounting for 88% of the population.
The Chinese mainland reported more than 56,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases in 28 provincial-level regions from March 1 to 24. Jilin province is one of the hardest-hit areas with more than 29,000 cases reported during the period. Qingdao, Weihai and Zibo cities in Shandong province, and the cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan in Guangdong provinces have initially contained the local outbreaks, while the situation in Beijing, Chongqing and Zhejiang province has stabilized. It is too early to treat Covid-19 driven by Omicron like the seasonal flu, Liang Wannian said.
The first batches of the oral Covid-19 medicine Paxlovid imported from Pfizer in Belgium were distributed by China Meheco Group Co from its warehouse in Beijing's Daxing district to Chanchun city in Jilin province, which recently registered many Covid-19 cases. China has already built 20 makeshift hospitals for Covid-19 patients and a further 13 are under construction in 19 cities, providing up to 35,000 extra beds.
This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily, Global Times and South China Morning Post.
