BEIJING: After six weeks of people confined to their homes, food shortages and persistent fears of being forced away, Shanghai’s lockdown appears to have an end date. But China’s rapidly escalating battle with Kovid-19 is not over yet.
Officials at the financial center said on Friday they are seeking to halt community spread of the virus by May 20, a sign that they may finally end the grim restrictions that have affected lives and businesses ranging from banking to cars. Everything has been disrupted till the construction. Yet the prospect of a lockdown in China’s major cities still looms large, with Beijing facing a growing list of COVID restrictions raising fears that it will soon suffer the same fate.
Once an obvious success story, China’s COVID strategy has become a liability. The zero-tolerance approach that has kept the virus out of the pandemic, flushing out more infective forms, and running out of patience for travel restrictions, enforced quarantines, and continued testing to relentlessly eradicate Covid.
Shanghai’s target was announced after the city failed to maintain a three-day stretch of zero infections outside quarantine zones in recent days. It has been an important milestone for local authorities in China to successfully contain an outbreak and be allowed to resume normal life.
strict restrictions
Still, if anything the President Xi Jinping It appears to be adopting ever-tighter COVID restrictions amid its lockdown strategy and unprecedented grassroots response against warnings of a sharp economic slowdown. Last week the Communist Party’s highest political body, the Politburo Standing Committee, vowed to “strongly fight any attempt to distort, question or deny” its policy.
For Xi, the political stakes are high. His government has described China’s fight against Covid as morally superior to that of the US and European countries, making it difficult to secure a precedent-breaking third term as president later this year. This has forced officials to stay on course and try to suppress internal criticism. World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – long seen as an ally by Beijing – said the COVID-zero strategy was no longer sustainable.
Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research Ltd., said, “It is now clear to anyone with two eyes that more people are dying from lockdown than from Covid and this is a way to stop people from moving around. It’s become an excuse.” ., who spent almost a quarter century in China. “Things like this feed themselves, so the more repression, the more rebellion, and things get out of control.”
The latest move to spark panic came on Thursday, when the National Immigration Administration said it would strictly limit non-essential outbound travel for Chinese nationals and reduce access to documents required for departure. While the move strengthened existing rules instead of setting new border restrictions, it worried many comments from Internet users that officials were trying to stop people from going abroad.
moisten the wound
“It’s like spilling salt on a wound,” said Shanghai-based finance professional Sophia Fang. “Why are they stopping us from leaving?”
Beijing officials on Thursday also denied widespread rumors of an imminent lockdown of the city’s 22 million people, sparking panic at food stores. Officials announced that they would instead conduct three rounds of COVID testing for most people, while strongly advising everyone to stay at home. Meanwhile, the police said they detained a woman for allegedly fabricating rumors about a so-called three-day silence period without food distribution.
At least three districts in the Chinese capital, most including areas popular with expatriates with foreign embassies, have made work from home mandatory and closed several metro and bus stations to limit movement. Meanwhile, schools remained closed this month and eating out in restaurants was banned. Many indoor venues such as gyms and museums have also closed.
Some major cities across the country are setting up permanent booths so that it doesn’t take more than 15 minutes for millions of residents to get tested. Guo Yanhong, an NHC official, said the new infrastructure, built at the behest of the National Health Commission, is aimed at increasing surveillance and early detection of Covid infections.
Meanwhile, most of the country’s 31 provinces have set up temporary hospitals – either building new ones from the ground up or remodeling existing facilities – to deal with rising infections in the future as Omicron flareups become more frequent. become normal.
While most analysts see little chance of widespread opposition or Xi being changed in any way, the measures have begun to erode confidence in the leadership among citizens who once described China’s measures as better than the rest of the world. .
early support fades
At the start of the pandemic, there was widespread support for measures such as mass testing, mandatory isolation of all infected, and lockdowns. But Omicron’s response to the more frequent and forceful implementation of these restrictions is starting to bring difficulties they never thought were possible, especially in Shanghai and other locked-down locations.
While previously Chinese citizens could compare their lives to that of friends and family living abroad, now their belief in the superiority of the Communist Party’s approach has been shaken, said Mark Tanner, managing director of Shanghai-based marketing and branding firm China Skinny, which regularly assesses Chinese consumers’ feelings for customers.
“They were really proud of how great China’s system was,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, I think a lot of them will probably feel like it’s the worst.”
Officials at the financial center said on Friday they are seeking to halt community spread of the virus by May 20, a sign that they may finally end the grim restrictions that have affected lives and businesses ranging from banking to cars. Everything has been disrupted till the construction. Yet the prospect of a lockdown in China’s major cities still looms large, with Beijing facing a growing list of COVID restrictions raising fears that it will soon suffer the same fate.
Once an obvious success story, China’s COVID strategy has become a liability. The zero-tolerance approach that has kept the virus out of the pandemic, flushing out more infective forms, and running out of patience for travel restrictions, enforced quarantines, and continued testing to relentlessly eradicate Covid.
Shanghai’s target was announced after the city failed to maintain a three-day stretch of zero infections outside quarantine zones in recent days. It has been an important milestone for local authorities in China to successfully contain an outbreak and be allowed to resume normal life.
strict restrictions
Still, if anything the President Xi Jinping It appears to be adopting ever-tighter COVID restrictions amid its lockdown strategy and unprecedented grassroots response against warnings of a sharp economic slowdown. Last week the Communist Party’s highest political body, the Politburo Standing Committee, vowed to “strongly fight any attempt to distort, question or deny” its policy.
For Xi, the political stakes are high. His government has described China’s fight against Covid as morally superior to that of the US and European countries, making it difficult to secure a precedent-breaking third term as president later this year. This has forced officials to stay on course and try to suppress internal criticism. World Health Organization Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – long seen as an ally by Beijing – said the COVID-zero strategy was no longer sustainable.
Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research Ltd., said, “It is now clear to anyone with two eyes that more people are dying from lockdown than from Covid and this is a way to stop people from moving around. It’s become an excuse.” ., who spent almost a quarter century in China. “Things like this feed themselves, so the more repression, the more rebellion, and things get out of control.”
The latest move to spark panic came on Thursday, when the National Immigration Administration said it would strictly limit non-essential outbound travel for Chinese nationals and reduce access to documents required for departure. While the move strengthened existing rules instead of setting new border restrictions, it worried many comments from Internet users that officials were trying to stop people from going abroad.
moisten the wound
“It’s like spilling salt on a wound,” said Shanghai-based finance professional Sophia Fang. “Why are they stopping us from leaving?”
Beijing officials on Thursday also denied widespread rumors of an imminent lockdown of the city’s 22 million people, sparking panic at food stores. Officials announced that they would instead conduct three rounds of COVID testing for most people, while strongly advising everyone to stay at home. Meanwhile, the police said they detained a woman for allegedly fabricating rumors about a so-called three-day silence period without food distribution.
At least three districts in the Chinese capital, most including areas popular with expatriates with foreign embassies, have made work from home mandatory and closed several metro and bus stations to limit movement. Meanwhile, schools remained closed this month and eating out in restaurants was banned. Many indoor venues such as gyms and museums have also closed.
Some major cities across the country are setting up permanent booths so that it doesn’t take more than 15 minutes for millions of residents to get tested. Guo Yanhong, an NHC official, said the new infrastructure, built at the behest of the National Health Commission, is aimed at increasing surveillance and early detection of Covid infections.
Meanwhile, most of the country’s 31 provinces have set up temporary hospitals – either building new ones from the ground up or remodeling existing facilities – to deal with rising infections in the future as Omicron flareups become more frequent. become normal.
While most analysts see little chance of widespread opposition or Xi being changed in any way, the measures have begun to erode confidence in the leadership among citizens who once described China’s measures as better than the rest of the world. .
early support fades
At the start of the pandemic, there was widespread support for measures such as mass testing, mandatory isolation of all infected, and lockdowns. But Omicron’s response to the more frequent and forceful implementation of these restrictions is starting to bring difficulties they never thought were possible, especially in Shanghai and other locked-down locations.
While previously Chinese citizens could compare their lives to that of friends and family living abroad, now their belief in the superiority of the Communist Party’s approach has been shaken, said Mark Tanner, managing director of Shanghai-based marketing and branding firm China Skinny, which regularly assesses Chinese consumers’ feelings for customers.
“They were really proud of how great China’s system was,” he said. “And then all of a sudden, I think a lot of them will probably feel like it’s the worst.”