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Shanghai, the biggest city in China, is currently in a two-stage lockdown that began on Monday. Authorities are trying to test different ways to continue growth. This is known as the worst outbreak of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.
This city consists of 26 million people and is located on the southeastern coast of China. It is a hub for international business and financials in China. It is also where the largest container-shipping port in the world.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange will continue to operate. On Sunday night, the exchange stated that the issuance of stock applications and paperwork can be done online. Deadline extensions can be given if necessary.
Lockdown Method and Restrictions
The city said that work from home orders and the pause of public transportation are part of the lockdown measures. Prior to this city-wide lockdown, only specific neighborhoods were faced with lockdowns temporarily to contain parts of the outbreak.
The first part of the lockdown will go from Monday to Friday morning and applies to the part of the city where the financial center is located, according to the city of Shanghai. Part two of the lockdown is applied to the western region of Shanghai. This phase will run from Friday to Tuesday, April 5th, according to municipal authorities.
“The lockdown and mandatory testing district by district in China’s largest city, key transportation hub, and financial center are highly likely to disrupt the city’s commercial activity,” proclaimed the head of macro and strategy research at China Renaissance, Bruce Pang.
Pang announced that in the near future the country will continue to enforce the zero-tolerance method. The approach is one of the strictest virus removal policies in the world.
Factory Production and Supermarket Inventory
Economists do not expect a big impact on the national economy for the entirety of the year. The lockdowns are intended to last only a week at the least. Stay-at-home measures and travel limitations have a higher effect on consumer services and spending than factory production as workers can mostly stay on the site at the industrial parks.
Based on a source from Bloomberg, the Tesla factory in Shanghai is located in the area under the first stage of lockdown and has reported the halt of production that a day at the very least.
On Monday, the company that manages the city’s ports, Shanghai International Port Group, stated in a statement made online that unless there are extreme weather conditions, production teams will continue 24-hour operation.
The appearance of the Omicron COVID-19 strain has made it difficult to control the outbreaks and has made uncertainty rise for business operations. Governments across the country have linked the recent surge of COVID-19 cases to the substrain Omicron.
How to Get in and Out
The country has continually enforced its strategy of quarantines and lockdowns in an attempt to keep the outbreaks contained while they uphold growth in the economy. The strategy has helped China come back from the devastation caused by the pandemic at the beginning of 2020 with fewer infections and deaths in comparison with other regions of the world.
People are panic-buying according to a report on Sunday. Supermarket shelves are becoming empty. Barriers were being added on Monday. Workers are wearing hazmat suits at the checkpoints.
Officials in Shanghai have stressed in the past weeks how they would use specific approaches in different neighborhoods instead of a city lockdown. During an announcement made on Sunday, the city expressed that the two-piece lockdown was put in place to conduct batches of virus testing.
Instead of a blanket ban on traveling to and from Shanghai while in the two-part lockdown, authorities have made clear that people in the city departing by train, airline, or highway, will need a negative COVID-19 test. The time frame for the test is within 48-hours of leaving.
According to the municipal transport authority, the two airports in the city, including the airport focused on traveling internationally are operating as normal. Three train stations in the city are operating normally as well.
Travel bans and partial lockdowns are also being enforced in several cities in the Jilin province. This included Changchun. Even though Jilin has seen over 1,000 new COVID-19 positive cases daily, control and prevention actions taken do not seem to have been as intense in other locations.
Asymptomatic COVID-19 Case Surge
New cases confirmed in Shanghai have continued to be high. The number of cases of those who are asymptomatic has been higher than symptomatic patients. A report from Shanghai on Sunday shows that 3,450 patients that tested positive for COVID-19 are asymptomatic.
The city has the highest number of asymptomatic cases in any region in mainland China that is province-level. They also reported 50 new COVID-19 cases that day. All 3,500 patients are in treatment or under medical watch and are isolated.
An update made on March 15 says that asymptomatic and mild cases are manageable at centers for quarantine.
Written by Marrissa Kay
Sources:
CNBC: China is shutting down Shanghai in two phases to control Covid; by Evelyn Cheng
NBC: Shanghai starts China’s biggest Covid lockdown in 2 years; by The Associated Press
ABC News: Shanghai starts China’s biggest COVID-19 lockdown in 2 years; by The Associated Press
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Alex Healing’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Inline Image Courtesy of John Pasden’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License