Shanghai moves toward ending 2-month COVID-19 lockdown
SHANGHAI, China (AP) — Shanghai authorities say they will take major steps Wednesday toward reopening China’s largest city after a two-month COVID-19 lockdown that has set back the national economy and largely confined millions of people to their homes.
Full bus and subway service will be restored, as will basic rail connections with the rest of China, Vice Mayor Zong Ming said Tuesday at a daily briefing on the city’s outbreak.
“The epidemic has been effectively controlled,” she said, adding that the city will start the phase of fully restoring work and life on Wednesday.
Schools will partially reopen on a voluntary basis, and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and drug stores will reopen gradually at no more than 75 percent of their total capacity. Cinemas and gyms will remain closed.
More than half a million people in the city of 25 million won’t be allowed out Wednesday — 190,000 who are still in lockdown areas and another 450,000 who are in control zones because of recent cases.
Shanghai recorded 29 new cases on Monday, continuing a steady decline from more than 20,000 a day in April. Li Qiang, the top official from China’s ruling Communist Party in Shanghai, was quoted as saying at a meeting Monday that the city had made major achievements in fighting the outbreak through continuous struggle.
The success came at a price. Authorities imposed a suffocating citywide lockdown under China’s “zero-COVID” strategy that aims to snuff out any outbreak with mass testing and isolation at centralised facilities of anyone who is infected.
Schools will reopen for the final two years of high school and the third year of middle school, but students can decide whether to attend in person. Other grades and kindergarten remain closed.
Outdoor tourist sites will start reopening Wednesday, with indoor sites set to follow in late June, the Shanghai tourism authority said. Group tours from other provinces will be allowed again when the city has eliminated all high- and medium-risk pandemic zones.
Beijing, the nation’s capital, further eased restrictions Tuesday in some districts. The city imposed limited lockdowns, but nothing near a citywide level, in a much smaller outbreak that appears to be on the wane. Beijing recorded 18 new cases on Monday.