China says COVID outbreak 'under control'
Shanghai said yesterday it has brought China's worst outbreak of COVID-19 under effective control following a month-long lockdown of nearly 25 million people, with authorities vowing to stand by their ZERO-COVID strategy despite mounting economic costs.
The number of new COVID infections in China's financial hub had been on a "continuous downward trend" since April 22, the city's vice major Wu Qing said.
"Currently, our city's epidemic prevention and control situation is steadily improving, and the epidemic has come under effective control," he told a news conference.
Many of Shanghai's 25 million residents are still under lockdown and chafing against the measures, now in their second month, implemented as part of China's "ZERO-COVID" approach to tackling COVID.
Wu sounded a note of caution, saying while community transmission has been "effectively curbed" there was a risk of a rebound, and the city would not sway from the "dynamic clearance" strategy.
"We cannot relax, we cannot slack off: persistence is victory," he said, echoing comments at a meeting of the standing committee of the ruling Communist Party's politburo late on Thursday.
The virus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019. The strategy taken by China to fight it, of mass testing, strict quarantine and sweeping lockdowns, threatens its official growth target of about 5.5 per cent this year and has sent reverberations across the global economy.
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, in theory, leave their homes and roam around their communities.
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 area has reported no positive cases for weeks.
One large compound in central Shanghai's Changning district, announced yesterday that it was relaxing restrictions within the compound and scaling back the number of volunteers helping to deliver food. But its residents could still not get out
through its locked gates.
Japan will further ease in June border controls implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and bring them on par with other Group of Seven nations, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday.
The infection situation has been stabilizing in Japan and the government will consult with public health experts before reviewing the country's COVID-19 measures "in stages", Kishida said at a press conference in London, without giving further details.
Japan initially enforced an effective ban on the entry of nonresident foreign nationals late last year, drawing criticism at home and abroad that the measures were too strict.
The government has gradually been easing the rules, currently allowing up to 10,000 people a day to enter Japan. Visitors are limited to businesspeople, technical interns and students, while foreign tourists are still not allowed in.
Calls have been growing in the business circle for easing the travel restrictions. Members of a Japanese government panel recently said the country's travel controls should be normalised "as soon as possible."
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Japan had been keen to boost tourism as a driver of economic growth, with a goal in 2020 to attract 40 million foreign visitors.