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China's Covid-19 cases have shown a significant drop after two major cities- Shanghai and Beijing recorded a fourth wave like rise in cases. China authorities had resorted to stringent lockdown, causing severe issues for locked down residents, wherein videos emerged of people asking for ‘death’ rather than another strict lockdown.
Capital city, Beijing has refrained from imposing a city-wide lockdown, reporting dozens of new cases a day, versus tens of thousands in Shanghai at its peak. Still, the curbs and endless mass testing imposed on China's capital have unsettled its economy and upended the lives of its people.
China's strategy to achieve zero Covid cases includes strict border closures, lengthy quarantines, mass testing and rapid, targeted lockdowns.
Beijing
In the latest news emerging out of the capital city of China, it has been known that thousands of Covid-negative residents were relocated to quarantine hotels overnight due to a handful of infections.
As per reports only 26 cases were reported in Beijing, following which these residents were forced to quarantine and were asked to ‘Co-operate’. “Please cooperate, otherwise you will bear the corresponding legal consequences," people were informed.
Beijing has been battling its worst outbreak since the pandemic started. The Omicron variant has infected over 1,300 since late April, leading city restaurants, schools and tourist attractions to be closed indefinitely.
Over 13,000 residents of the locked-down Nanxinyuan residential compound in southeast Beijing were relocated to quarantine hotels overnight Friday due to 26 new infections discovered in recent days, according to photos and a government notice widely shared on social media.
"Experts have determined that all Nanxinyuan residents undergo centralised quarantine beginning midnight 21 May for seven days," authorities from Chaoyang district said Friday.
Social media photos showed hundreds of residents with luggage queueing in the dark to board coaches parked outside the compound.
"Some of us have been locked down for 28 days since April 23, and we all tested negative throughout," wrote one resident on the Twitter-like Weibo.
"The transfer really makes us feel like we're in a wartime scene," resident and real estate blogger Liu Guangyu posted on Weibo early Saturday.
Liu told AFP that they were only notified of the move half a day in advance, but said he was satisfied with the hotel.
Residents were told to pack their clothes and essential belongings, and that their homes would be disinfected afterwards, according to screenshots shared on Weibo.
Chaoyang District disease control authorities told AFP that it does not release information externally and to rely on the Beijing authorities' Covid press conference.
Beijing authorities on Saturday extended work from home guidance to one more district, one day after halting the vast majority of public bus and subway services.
Shanghai
Shanghai cautiously pushed ahead on Saturday with plans to restore part of its transport network in a major step towards exiting a weeks-long Covid-19 lockdown, while Beijing kept up its defences in an outbreak that has persisted for a month.
Shanghai's lockdown since the beginning of April has dealt a heavy economic blow to China's most populous city, stirred debate over the sustainability of the nation's zero-Covid policy and stoked fears of future lockdowns and disruptions.
Weibo users expressed widespread anxiety that Beijing authorities were taking a similar approach to Shanghai, where residents have chafed under a month-long lockdown that has denied many people adequate access to food and medical care.
Shanghai's central Jingan district, a key commercial area of the Chinese financial hub, said on Saturday it will require all supermarkets and shops to shut and residents to stay home until at least Tuesday.
The district plans to carry out Covid mass testing from Sunday until Tuesday, it said on its official WeChat account.
The use of all exit permits previously given to residents that allowed them to leave their homes will be suspended, the district added without saying why.
(With inputs from agencies)
