Shanghai tomorrow is to lock down a district of 2.7 million people to conduct mass testing for COVID-19, city authorities said yesterday, as the Chinese metropolis struggles to fully emerge from punishing curbs.
The city eased many restrictions last week, after confining most of its 25 million residents to their homes since March as China battled its worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years.
However, the lockdown was never fully lifted, with hundreds of thousands in China’s biggest city still restricted to their homes and multiple residential compounds put under fresh stay-at-home orders.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The southwestern district of Minhang, home to 2.7 million people, would be placed under “closed management” tomorrow morning and all residents would be tested, district authorities said in a social media post.
“The closure would be lifted after the samples have been collected,” they said, without giving a specific time or date.
The statement also did not say what measures would be imposed if any district residents test positive.
Under China’s “zero COVID-19” approach, all positive cases are isolated and close contacts — often including the entire building or community where they live — are made to quarantine.
Shanghai reported nine new local infections yesterday, with none of them in Minhang.
The district’s announcement sparked fear among some social media users that the lockdown could be prolonged if any cases are found.
“You need to clarify if [the lockdown] will really be lifted after samples are collected,” one person wrote.
“If there are abnormal results after the tests, what will you do? Continue the lockdown?” another asked.
The city government denied rumours that the rest of the city would lock down again in phases, saying that while individual areas had issued confinement orders, the city as a whole was “gradually resuming normal production and life.”
The lockdown in Shanghai — a major global shipping hub — had threatened to pile further pressure on already-strained international supply chains.
However, the city has slowly come back to life in the past few days.
Commuters are back on subways and buses as people return to working in their offices, while residents have gathered in parks and along the city’s waterfront.
However, others are chafing under continued restrictions, with residents in one compound in Xuhui District protesting against the rules this week.
India yesterday summoned Canada’s high commissioner in India to “convey strong concern” over Sikh protesters in Canada and how they were allowed to breach the security of India’s diplomatic mission and consulates. Canadian media reported that hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Indian consulate in Vancouver on Saturday over demands for an independent Sikh state, a simmering issue for decades that was triggered again in the past few weeks. Canada has the highest population of Sikhs outside their home state of Punjab in India. “It is expected that the Canadian government will take all steps which are required to ensure the
CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS: The US destroyer’s routine operations in the South China Sea would have ‘serious consequences,’ the defense ministry said China yesterday threatened “serious consequences” after the US Navy sailed a destroyer around the disputed Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea for the second day in a row, in a move Beijing claimed was a breach of its sovereignty and security. The warning came amid growing tensions between China and the US in the region, as Washington pushes back at Beijing’s growingly assertive posture in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway it claims virtually in its entirety. On Thursday, after the US sailed the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer near the Paracel Islands, China said its navy and
The US Department of Justice on Friday unveiled spying charges against a Russian who, under a Brazilian alias, studied at a Washington university and then tried to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The indictment of Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov said it would try to contest his extradition to Russia from Brazil, where he is jailed on identity fraud charges. Cherkasov, 39, was detained at the beginning of April last year by Dutch authorities for using fake identity papers. He arrived in the country as Viktor Muller Ferreira, a Brazilian, to take a position at the ICC as a junior analyst. The
The Japanese government has made tackling its falling birthrate a top priority, but with few women involved in official debate on the issue, some are making themselves heard on social media. Japan recorded fewer than 800,000 births last year, the lowest in the nation of 125 million since records began. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has warned the trend threatens “whether we can continue to function as a society,” and fresh focus on the issue has sparked countless articles. However, one in particular, which said Japan has the highest ratio in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development of women aged 50
RSS