Shanghai Orders Snap Covid Tests for 25 Million Locked-Down Residents
BY WENXIN FAN | UPDATED 4月 04, 2022 02:25 午前 EDT
City’s cases hit record as Beijing mobilizes thousands of medical workers from across the country
Shanghai began testing all 25 million of its residents for Covid-19 Monday, aided by thousands of medical workers who arrived over the weekend from across the country, with the entire city now effectively under a lockdown that was meant to be in its final day.
Residents began lining up from early morning to receive the first of two rounds of nucleic acid tests, as public anger and frustration grew over the government’s handling of the city’s worst Covid-19 outbreak.
China’s financial capital reported a record 9,006 Covid cases Monday, out of 13,137 new domestic infections nationwide. On Saturday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, the official charged by Chinese leader Xi Jinping with leading the fight against the virus, arrived in the city to direct efforts to stamp out the outbreak that is being driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
“We’ll send in all our best forces,” Ms. Sun told the official Xinhua News Agency, using military terms in keeping with Beijing’s description of antivirus measures as battles in a war. “Rapidity is the essence of war.”
Sticking to the policy that calls for quarantine for all positive cases and close contacts, she began to mobilize more resources. In scenes reminiscent of Wuhan at the outset of the pandemic in early 2020, thousands of doctors and nurses streamed into the city to help conduct tests and to care for positive cases in government isolation facilities. The reinforcement includes 7,200 doctors and nurses from Zhejiang province and 2,000 medical personnel of the People’s Liberation Army.
A Shanghai government press briefing referred to footage circulating on social media showing the arrival of medical workers on long lines of buses. A squad of nurses and doctors vowed to help Shanghai come through the crisis before boarding a flight from Hainan in southern China.
With the vast majority of people who tested positive showing no symptoms, public frustration and anger is growing over what many see as the city government’s heavy-handed policies, which have brought life to a standstill, shuttered factories and left many residents struggling to find food and access to medical services.
Shanghai had planned a two-phase lockdown, in which half the city’s residents would be confined to their homes at a time, depending on which side of the Huangpu River they lived. The first four-day lockdown of residents to the east and south of the river was to have ended Friday. The second stage was due to end at 3 a.m. Tuesday.
In reality, Monday morning saw residents from both sides of the river still under lockdown with no indication of when they will be freed.
City authorities said they had already carried out 33 million tests during the two-phase lockdown, though the strategy has yet to show that it is bringing the outbreak under control.