Authorities also said on Sunday that people cannot leave or enter the city without a negative test in the last 48 hours.
On Sunday, millions were imprisoned across China, the country recording the highest daily coronavirus cases in two years, but the zero-covid policy is causing popular fatigue and questions about its merits.
Due to a surge in cases across the country, residential areas have been cordoned off one by one in Shanghai, China’s most populous metropolitan area, along with schools, businesses, restaurants and shopping malls.
Authorities also said on Sunday that people cannot leave or enter the city without a negative test in the last 48 hours.
66 new cases, 17 million prisoners
In the south’s tech hub, Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, 17 million people were placed into lockdown on Sunday after 66 new cases were reported, along with entire cities in the northeast as nearly nineteen provinces grapple with localized outbreaks from across the Delta. and variants of Omicron.
Yanji, a city of 700,000 on the border with North Korea, is completely isolated. And the major city of Jilin in the northeast has been partially brought under control, with hundreds of neighborhoods, an official announced Sunday.
Residents of Jilin, where more than 500 Omicron cases have been reported, completed six rounds of mandatory drug tests on Sunday, according to local authorities.
China, where the virus was first detected in late 2019, has applied a zero-tolerance policy to the outbreak. It is responding to outbreaks with local restrictions, mass screening, control of its population with tracking apps, and the country’s borders remain virtually closed.
Political imperative
But this record of daily cases caused by the Omicron variant undermines that approach.
“The emergency response mechanism in some areas is not reliable enough, the understanding of the characteristics of the Omicron variant is insufficient (…) and the decision was inaccurate,” Zhang Yan, a health official, admitted at a government press briefing. Jilin province.
State media reported that the mayor of Jilin and the health official of Changchun were removed from their posts on Saturday in a political imperative placed on local authorities to deal with the outbreak.
So far, China has been able to keep coronavirus cases at a very low level thanks to drastic measures, but the country is growing tired of such a strict approach.
Zero Covid?
Several officials are now advocating more targeted measures, with economists warning that drastic measures are hurting the country’s economy.
“This is the worst (containment, editor’s note) since 2020,” a Shenzhen resident named Zhang told AFP. “The closure happened too suddenly, my friend woke up in the morning and found that her building had been sealed off overnight without warning. Her boss had to mail her her laptop.”
Hong Kong, for its part, currently has one of the highest death rates from the virus in the world, with Omicron hitting its elderly population who are still unwilling to be vaccinated.
Thousands of expatriates have also fled the city, largely due to school closures and severe restrictions that have virtually eliminated any gathering or movement.
Faced with a rise in cases, China’s National Health Administration announced on Friday that it will introduce the use of rapid antigen tests, which could indicate an easing of the Communist Party’s health policy.
Last week, a leading Chinese scientist said the country should strive to live with the virus, as other countries have done.
But the government does not exclude the possibility of resorting to strict restrictions.