Shanghai on Friday reported 12 new COVID-19-related deaths, up from 11 the previous day, as frustrations among residents continued to boil over amid a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.
The city, battling China’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak so far, recorded 20,634 new local asymptomatic infections on Friday, rebounding from 15,698 a day earlier. Total new symptomatic cases reached 2,736, up from 1,931 on Thursday, official data showed.
The patients who died had an average age of 88, the Shanghai government said.
Photo: Bloomberg
All had underlying health conditions and none had been vaccinated.
“One strategy that needs immediate implementation is to increase rates of the booster vaccination dose to the elderly and other vulnerable groups and to see if mRNA [messenger RNA] vaccines can be used,” said Jaya Dantas, a public health expert at the Curtin School of Population Health in Australia, who is monitoring the Shanghai outbreak.
China has yet to introduce its own mRNA vaccines and has chosen not to import those developed overseas.
In a study published by the Chinese Disease Prevention and Control Center on Friday, medical experts in the northeastern city of Jilin, the location of another outbreak, said China’s vaccines have been effective so far, although new emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants remained unpredictable.
“The data is strong enough to indicate the public significance of the strategy of full and booster vaccination, particularly for the elder population,” they said.
Although frustrations continued to bubble over in Shanghai’s sealed-off residential compounds, local officials maintained there would be no relaxation until new cases outside of quarantine areas have all been cleared.
“The more critical the period becomes, the more we need to grit our teeth and focus our strength,” Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng (龔正) was quoted as saying on Shanghai’s official government WeChat channel late on Friday.
The number of cases outside quarantine areas stood at 218, down from 250 the previous day.
Shanghai’s full-city lockdown began at the start of this month, although many residents have been confined to their homes for much longer.
However, even after shutting down for more than 30 days, some compounds are still reporting new cases, casting doubt on the efficacy of China’s approach.
“This is a significant amount of time and does have mental health impacts: People are exhausted and frustrated,” Dantas said.
On social media, people battled against censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April,” a montage of voices recorded over the course of the Shanghai outbreak.
Panning across Shanghai’s silent skyscrapers, the video consists of residents complaining about the lack of food and medicine, as well as the heavy-handed tactics of city authorities.
All direct references to the film were removed from Sina Weibo (微博) by yesterday morning, although some comments criticizing the censorship survived.
“I can only say that if you don’t even want to listen to just a small amount of real voices, then it is really hopeless,” one said.
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