Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from Monday to Friday as mass testing gets underway, the local government said. In the second phase of the lockdown, …
BEIJING — China began its most extensive coronavirus lockdown in two years Monday to conduct mass testing and control a growing outbreak in Shanghai as questions are raised about the economic toll of the nation’s “zero-COVID” strategy.
Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended. Some workers, including traders at the city’s stock market, were preparing to stay within a COVID-19 “bubble” for the duration of the lockdown.
“I think if the closure continues like this, our school workers will not be affected much, but what about those who work in the real economy? How can their business be maintained?” Huang said. Two deaths were reported March 20 in Jilin. Before that, mainland China’s official death toll had stood at 4,636 for a year.
Shanghai itself has converted two gymnasiums, an exhibition hall and other facilities to house potential infected patients. While officials, including Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have encouraged more targeted measures, local officials tend to take a more extreme approach, concerned with being fired or otherwise punished over accusations of failing to prevent outbreaks.