More Covid cases detected, Shanghai district imposes lockdown, orders mass testing

Continuing its hardline ‘Zero-COVID’ policy, the Shanghai administration in China on Friday ordered a lockdown and mass testing of all 1.3 million residents of its downtown Yangpu district, confining them to their homes until results are known, reports AP.

The order is an echo of measures over the summer that led to a two-month lockdown of the entire city of 25 million that devastated the local economy, prompted food shortages and rare confrontations between residents and authorities.

At the start of the lockdown, authorities said they would last just days but then kept extending the deadline.

China on Friday reported 1,337 new cases — most of them asymptomatic — and no new deaths. Shanghai reported 11 asymptomatic cases and Tibet had one confirmed case with symptoms and five asymptomatic cases. China says it has recorded a total of 258,660 cases and 5,226 deaths since the pandemic was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.

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In a sign China's tough measures will be maintained in the long term, Shanghai plans to build a permanent quarantine centre on an island in the Huangpu river, according to the business magazine Caixin.

The $221 million project on Fuxing Island will expand existing facilities to create 3,009 isolation rooms and 3,250 beds, with construction expected to be completed in six months, Caixin said.

China has shown no sign of backing away from its hardline ‘Zero-COVID’ policy since the ruling Communist Party congress concluded this week by awarding Xi Jinping a third five-year term in power and packed top bodies with his loyalists.

Strict measures have been imposed across the country, from Shanghai in the east to Tibet far to the west, where anti-lockdown protests have also been reported.Cellphone footage smuggled out of the region showed crowds of both native Tibetans and Han Chinese migrants milling in the streets of Lhasa to protest a lockdown that has lasted as long as 74 days.

Lhasa has been under tight surveillance since anti-government protests broke out in the city in 2008 before spreading across Tibetan areas.

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Many Chinese had hoped for a relaxation of the strict anti-COVID-19 protocols, which remain in place even as the rest of the world has opened up.

China's domestically developed vaccines are considered relatively ineffective and it has refused to approve foreign brands such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J&J.
Still, China wants more people to get booster shots before it relaxes its restrictions. As of mid-October, 90% of Chinese were fully vaccinated and 57% had received a booster shot.

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