Shanghai reimposes strict Covid measures as cases rise
Shanghai is tightening Covid-19 restrictions to combat a rise in cases, stoking fears of renewed disruption across China’s financial centre just months after it emerged from a protracted lockdown.
Multiple districts this week confirmed the closure of entertainment venues, such as bars and cinemas, as the authorities rushed to contain the latest outbreak while case numbers remain low. On Thursday, 47 infections were reported for the previous day, the most since mid-July.
Close contacts of positive cases, identified through the country’s vast track-and-trace system, were sent to quarantine hotels and centres and their buildings were subjected to temporary lockdowns, in a sign of the city’s commitment to stamping out any outbreaks of the virus.
One white-collar professional in the district of Pudong who asked to be identified only by his surname Hou was taken to spend 10 days in a quarantine centre on Sunday night because he was a close contact of a case on a flight into Shanghai last Tuesday. He had flown into Shanghai to avoid a lockdown in his native Gansu province, where his parents’ home was in the process of being fenced off.
Hou said he was told by the Pudong Centre for Disease Control that the definition of close contact had been strengthened recently. Previously, on public transport, only passengers close to the confirmed case would be classified as such, but now all the passengers on the plane are determined to be close contacts.
Shanghai’s tally of 47 cases on Wednesday included just two outside quarantine facilities but came after several days of zero Covid cases in late September.
Residents of the city must take a PCR test every three days at one of many temporary booths on street corners. If the result is negative, a QR code on their phone turns green. This must be scanned to enter most buildings and public transport and is used to trace contacts.
On Wednesday evening, mainland epidemic expert Liang Wannian, who led the Covid Response Expert Team at the National Health Commission, said in a state broadcast that while the government and people were looking forward to a return to the situation before 2019, there was currently no timetable for such a development.
Reporting by Thomas Hale and Wang Xueqiao in Shanghai and Andy Lin and Cheng Leng in Hong Kong
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Thomas Hale
