Recently, China is witnessing the re-emergence of Omicron driven Covid-19 cases in many of its cities. Due to increased growth in the daily cases of Covid-19 in Shanghai, China, the government has imposed a phased lockdown in the city. Shanghai on Sunday recorded a total of 4,500 fresh Covid-19 cases, which is an increase of around 18 per cent in the last few days. The biggest Chinese city lodged 1,609 cases on Thursday, 2,267 on Friday and 2,676 cases on Saturday, according to the National Health Commission of China.
Covid-19 has already caused lockdowns in some Chinese cities recently. In the wake of the speedily increasing cases, Shanghai has now become the leading hotspot in the nationwide outbreak and therefore the Chinese government has decided to implement a two-phase lockdown in Shanghai from March 28 to April 5.
This lockdown will affect the public transport services, taxis and the city’s subway system during the lockdown. Also, all the companies and factories will be shut down along the institutions within or outside the city will have to cease their operation under lockdown. The government has allowed the service of food supply. However, it was not immediately clear that what effect the lockdown would have on the port, air or rail services.
The Shanghai government said they would be split the city into two for testing – the east side of the Huangpu River and its west side will be locked down in phases. Lockdown and testing will be carried out extensively in one part of the city from March 28 to April 1 and in another part from April 1 to April 5.
More than 2.6 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine have been administered to China’s 1.6 billion people by 2021. A study by the University of Hong Kong found that the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine – Sinovac did not have the expected success in developing antibodies against the Omicron variant, noting that even the fully vaccinated citizens could not stay protected against the Covid-19 virus.
However, China has categorically refused to implement a complete lockdown in Shanghai saying that the city is a global shipping and financial hub and a complete lockdown could have an impact on the global economy.
