Strict Shanghai lockdown extended
Reasoning unclear as COVID cases decrease
BEIJING — Authorities in Shanghai have again tightened anti-virus restrictions, just as the city was emerging from a month of strict lockdown due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
Notices issued in several districts said residents were ordered to stay home and are barred from receiving nonessential deliveries as part of a “quiet period” lasting at least until Wednesday. The tightened measures could be extended depending on the results of mass testing, the notices said.
“Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. Together we can lift the lockdown at an early date,” said one notice issued in the city’s Huangpu district and posted online.
It wasn’t clear what prompted the renewed tightening, with numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the city continuing to fall.
Shanghai on Monday reported 3,947 cases over the previous 24 hours, almost all of them asymptomatic, along with 11 deaths. Authorities have been gradually lifting isolation rules on the city’s 25 million residents, but the new orders appear to be returning to conditions at the early stage of the outbreak.
Shanghai originally ordered mass testing along with a limited lockdown, but extended that as case numbers rose. Thousands of residents have been forced into centralized quarantine centers for showing a positive test result or merely having been in contact with an infected person.
Two Shanghai residents reached through social media said they’d had no prior notice of the new restrictions, which they were told could last for up to a week.
“We’re unprepared,” said Zhang Chen, a researcher with a technology company. “I packed my luggage thinking it would be my turn next” to be taken to a quarantine facility.
“I don’t know what will happen in May, but after the lockdown, I think I’ll need psychological help,” Zhang said.
A marketing professional in the western Pudong district said quality of life has been declining even as living expenses continue to rise under lockdown.
“Every time, they say lockdown will be eased after a few days, but there seems to be no end,” said the woman, who asked that she be identified only by her surname, Lu, to avoid repercussions from authorities who have cracked down heavily on dissent.