According to Shanghai city’s vice mayor Wu Qing, China’s worst outbreak of COVID-19 under effective control following a month-long lockdown of nearly 25 million people. The number of new COVID infections in China’s financial hub had been on a “continuous downward trend” since April 22, the result of the lockdown. Despite mounting economic costs, authorities are still vowing to stand by their zero-COVID strategy.
“Currently, our cities epidemic prevention and control situations is steadily improving, and the epidemic has come under effective control,” Wu was quoted as saying in a news conference.
However, Wu sounded a note of caution, saying while community transmissions has been effectively curbed there has been a risk of a rebound, and the city would not sway away from the dynamic clearance strategy.
“We cannot relax, we cannot slack off: persistent is victory,” he said, echoing comments and a meeting of the standing committee of the ruling Communist Party’s politburo on Thursday.
The strategy taken by China to fight the pandemic, of mass testing, strict quarantine and sweeping lockdowns, threatens is official growth target of about 5.5% this year and has sent reverberations across the global economy.
Many of Shanghai’s 25 million residents are still under lockdown. Though some 2.3 million Shanghai residents are still in sealed-off high-risk areas, another 16.67 million are in lower risk prevention zones, meaning they can leave their homes and roam around their communities in principle.
However, many residents have been complaining that different community officials are applying the rules in different ways, with some people in “prevention zones” still unable to get out even though their areas has reported no positive cases for weeks.
Shanghai reported 4024 new cases on may the May 5, down from 4,390 a day earlier. Confirmed symptomatic cases stood at 245, also down from 261 a day earlier. Deaths fell to 12, from 13 a day earlier.
