Locked-down Shanghai officials stated on Friday that they want to ringfence their COVID epidemic over the next week, while citizens in China’s capital Beijing mostly followed authorities’ advise to work from home to prevent the virus from spreading.
Although there is growing concern that Beijing may take similar steps if it fails to manage a nascent epidemic, easing weeks of onerous restrictions in the commercial hub would provide comfort to China’s bruised economy.
Shanghai’s deputy mayor, Wu Qing, said the metropolis of 25 million people hopes to eradicate COVID outside of quarantined areas within the next week.
The city’s lockdown will then be ‘lifted in batches,’ with shops reopening and traffic restrictions being removed, he said in the announcement, which corroborated a Reuters story from Sunday.
The vast majority of Shanghai’s more than 2,000 new cases are in places already subject to the most stringent regulations, while those detected in more open communities are being attentively monitored for signals as to where the outbreak is headed.
On May 12, the number of such incidents increased to four from two the day before.
Some Shanghai residents were allowed outside their housing compounds for short outings and grocery shopping last week, but the city has recently tightened restrictions.
More and more districts have entered what authorities refer to as ‘silent management mode,’ which entails boarded-up buildings, no deliveries, and residents trapped inside once more.
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