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The Chinese city of Shanghai started a step-by-step lockdown on Monday due to a major corona outbreak.
The measure will first apply for four whole days in the eastern part of the city with 26 million inhabitants, and then the western part will go into lockdown until the early morning of April 5.
Due to an overlap of the lockdowns, the inhabitants of the two city districts can’t infect each other with the coronavirus. During the lockdown, public transport is at a standstill, bridges and tunnels are closed, and people are working from home. The measure, the strictest yet for Shanghai, will be accompanied by massive testing campaigns.
In this way, China hopes to prevent the coronavirus’s further spread and achieve the goal of zero infections as soon as possible. The authorities have maintained a strict zero-covid policy since the pandemic’s start. Therefore, despite the many infections in Shanghai, they were reluctant to introduce a lockdown in China’s largest city. However, on Monday, a record number of 3,500 new infections was registered.
The contagious omikron variant of the coronavirus has made it more difficult for the Chinese authorities to stick to the corona policy. As a result, tens of millions of people in other parts of the country had to go into lockdown earlier this year. Other strict measures are also being taken. For example, primary and secondary schools in Shanghai had already switched to digital education earlier this month.
