Shanghai’s Covid-19 surge led to fears in the minds of residents of neighbouring cities. Zhengzhou Airport Economic Zone, a central Chinese manufacturing area that includes Apple Inc supplier Foxconn, according to a report by Reuters announced a two-week lockdown. Fears of another lockdown have also gripped residents of Xian city who earlier this year were subjected to strict lockdowns when Omicron ran rampant in the city.
Chinese state-run news agency Global Times in an article attempted to whitewash any concerns as it omitted news of large-scale panic among Shanghai residents due to the food crisis in the city while brushing aside reports of Xian lockdown as ‘temporary control measures’. It claimed that residents of Xian are not as impacted by the news of the so-called temporary control measures.
Closing Dine-in services and public entertainment venues along with halting in-person classes in Xian are some of the ‘temporary control measures’ issued by the authorities of the capital city of Shaanxi Province.
At least 3,590 symptomatic cases for April 15, as well as 19,923 asymptomatic cases were reported from Shanghai. Images of police scuffling with Shanghai residents have escaped China’s great firewall and reached global media outlets sparking concern that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is handling the pandemic with heavy handedness which it also calls it zero-Covid policy. Shanghai has recorded more than 330,000 infections due to the latest surge spurred by the Omicron variant.
Residents in Shanghai, in some of the less wealthy areas, were reported to have broken down barricades to grab food as the city’s inhabitants were running out of food. These scenes were unnatural for China where the CCP culls dissenters and does not allow criticism of the authorities. Police officials were accused of mistreating elderly patients as well as killing pets in a bid to force Shanghai residents into submission.
Authorities are rushing to build hospitals with tens of thousands of beds to house Covid-19 patients as daily infections continue to rise.
Suzhou city of East China’s Jiangsu Province ramped up its Covid prevention measures after authorities found Covid-19 cases among migrant workers in the area around the Suzhou Railway Station. Residents in Suzhou were also told to remain home.
Read the Latest News and Breaking News here
Comments
0 comment