Plans to relax the strict lockdown were announced by Shanghai authorities on Monday, despite a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases in recent days. The situation in this metropolis of 26 million people, as in other parts of China, is chaotic. Citizens are outraged because of the harsh restrictive measures that have been in place for the past week throughout Shanghai, as part of the "zero Covid" policy that the central government of Xi Jinping is trying to implement in China.
Concerns about the sufficiency of goods, as there are mass "raids" on supermarkets amid public fears of a new prolonged house lockout, and huge pressure on the economy, make up a highly intractable problem with many variables. Shares of China's industrial giants such as automaker Nio are plummeting on international stock exchanges, reflecting investors' lack of confidence in Chinese companies for the immediate future.
This is why state authorities are making plans to relax rather than further tighten measures, despite the new and aggressive pandemic wave. On Monday, cases in Shanghai shattered all previous records for the recent period, with 914 coincidental and 25.173 asymptomatic patients.
In the current wave, the dominant variant of the new coronavirus is the so-called "Omicron BA.2", which shows strong transmissibility. Cases of Covid have been recorded in 29 other places in China, apart from Shanghai, which is at the centre of the pandemic resurgence. Infectious disease experts appear pessimistic about the prospects of the virus spreading throughout the country.
However, Shanghai appears willing to release residents under a plan that calls for the city to be divided into three zones or "protection areas". In these, the restrictions will be lifted as long as no new cases are reported within two weeks.
Apart from the Chinese citizens who are in a state of panic over the unknown future and possible shortages of medicine, food and basic necessities, the government is concerned about a further slowdown in the production chain. Shanghai is the largest and most important centre of the Chinese economy, but also the country's main transit hub. The delays in semiconductor production and the burden on the transport sector are negatively affecting not only China's economy, but almost the entire planet. The end result is the inability to meet demand in time and, consequently, rising prices for almost all consumer goods.
Apart from Shanghai, the problem can be found in many other parts of China, such as the city of Guangzhou with its 18 million inhabitants. There, mandatory population control was imposed, while local media reported a massive raid on supermarkets and consumer panic to secure supplies.
At the same time, Chinese social media (their Western counterparts are banned by the Chinese regime) are circulating practical advice on, for example, the preservation of fresh food or information on whether there are sufficient stocks of medicines and basic necessities for survival.
Source: First Theme
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