China sees progress in COVID-19 battle in Shanghai

Posted by freeamfva on May 10th, 2022

China sees progress in COVID-19 battle in Shanghai

As China battles Omicron-driven activity in some of its biggest cities, health officials in Shanghai today said its outbreak is under control, as later-affected Beijing tightened measures in a hot spot district.To get more news about coronavirus china update, you can visit shine news official website.

In Shanghai, which is entering its second month of lockdown, city officials said cases have been declining since Apr 22, though they didn\'t signal that measures will be relaxed anytime soon, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, Beijing officials announced the closure of nonessential businesses in Chaoyang, its biggest district, which is home to several embassies and office buildings. Authorities also said mass testing will resume in four districts over the weekend.

The country\'s National Health Commission today reported 4,628 new local cases, including 356 symptomatic cases and 4,272 classified as asymptomatic. Shanghai had 4,269 cases, 4,024 of them asymptomatic. And Beijing had 72 cases, 17 of them asymptomatic. Twelve deaths were reported, all of them from Shanghai.

At the national level, Chinese officials are doubling down on its \"zero COVID\" policy and are pushing back on claims that the strict measures are hurting the global economy due to shuttered factories in lockdown areas and supply chain interruptions.

In a related development, China is planning for post lockdown scenarios by building permanent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 testing facilities, according to Reuters.Immediately after Beijing said it had detected a new coronavirus outbreak, officials hurried to assure residents there was no reason to panic. Food was plentiful, they said, and any lockdown measures would be smooth. But Evelyn Zheng, a freelance writer in the city, was not taking any chances.

Her relatives, who lived in Shanghai, were urging her to leave or stock up on food. She had spent weeks poring over social media posts from that city, which documented the chaos and anguish of the monthlong lockdown there. And when she went out to buy more food, it was clear many of her neighbors had the same idea: Some shelves were already cleaned out.

\"At first, I was worried about Shanghai, because my family is there, and there was no good news from any of my friends,\" Ms. Zheng said. \"Now, Beijing is starting, too, and I don\'t know when it will land on my head.\"Anger and anxiety over the Shanghai lockdown, now in its fourth week, has posed a rare challenge for China\'s powerful propaganda apparatus, which is central to the Communist Party\'s ability to stifle dissent. As the Omicron variant continues to spread across the country, officials have defended their use of widespread, heavy-handed lockdowns. They have pushed a triumphalist narrative of their Covid response, which says that only the Chinese government had the will to confront, and hold back, the virus.

But among a populace with growing evidence of the costs of that approach, an alternate story - of rage, frustration and despair - is finding an audience. The anger, if not contained, could pose the biggest political test for China\'s leadership since the outbreak began. China\'s leader, Xi Jinping, has staked his legitimacy on successful control of the pandemic, a message that has only been amplified ahead of this fall, when he is expected to claim an unprecedented third term.

Since Shanghai\'s lockdown began, residents there have railed against the harsh measures, which have led to food shortages, delayed medical care, shoddy quarantine conditions and even physical fencing around residents\' homes. Officials have responded with their usual playbook, censoring critical posts, inundating state media with positive stories and blaming foreign forces for fanning false ones. But far from stemming the anger, they have fueled it.

Residents have compiled footage from their daily lives, showing rotting food or shouting matches with local officials, rebutting the authorities\' story of a tidy, cheery outbreak response. They have banded together to repost deleted content with a speed and savvy that for a time overwhelmed censors\' ability to keep up. Even some members of the political and academic elite have suggested that the government\'s propaganda about Shanghai is hurting its credibility.