Shanghai outbreak: How injured China’s largest city escapes ‘lockdown’ – BBC News

In the past five weeks, I have also been “blocked” and cannot cross the fence of the community for half a step. But it is the most vulnerable people in Shanghai who suffer the most.

One Mr. Wu recorded what he saw and heard during the quarantine period on Douyin. He said: “Medical resources are relatively tight now. Usually hospitalization in Shanghai will be better. Now that it is in the cabin, it must not be as good as usual.”

He had seen an 85-year-old woman fall ill, but paramedics rescued her.

We heard the sad story from the family of a 90-year-old woman who was taken away after testing positive and officials insisted she be taken to a government facility.

Her relatives requested anonymity. They said they were worried about her meals and whether she would be able to use the toilet alone. Her husband, also 90 years old and bedridden, was allowed to stay home.

Others told us earlier about even more horrific patient experiences at a hospital affected by the outbreak. We reported last month that patients admitted to Donghai Aged Care Hospital died after testing positive, at a time when the official death toll from the coronavirus was still zero.

One gentleman told us that his 90-year-old sister had died and was living in the same ward as five others. He contacted us again later to say that other people in the ward also died.

The BBC reporter saw a mobile phone message conversation. A hospital nurse said in the conversation that “a lot of people died in the intensive care unit”, but some people in the group added that “I don’t know the exact number.”

As of May 4, the official death toll stood at 491, almost all of them elderly and unvaccinated. Only 38% of people over the age of 60 in Shanghai have received three shots and are fully protected.

A month into the lockdown, some regions have just announced new measures to boost vaccination rates.

China’s top leadership remains unwavering in its belief that pursuing “zero” is the right choice, and President Xi Jinping, who is also the leader of the ruling Communist Party, has indicated that will not change. He believes that “persistence is victory”.

Now this is a test of China’s approach to the coronavirus and a test of Xi Jinping’s credibility.

The wording of this battle is evolving. The state-run media has now changed the lockdown to “static management,” and the government has been forced to shift its goal to “social zeroing,” which means preventing confirmed cases from appearing outside of quarantine and control sites.

That goal is almost there – the number of reported cases is falling, but it’s far from “zero”.

The approach to implementing “static management” is sometimes draconian.

Some people were locked in their homes, while others were blocked from returning home. Including the community where I live is surrounded by iron nets. Such green fences have sprung up in the city, cutting off roads.

Here, the space for objection and appeal is limited.

A man was stopped for questioning by police after showing a bag of groceries to another who was filming with a mobile phone. It can be seen from the seal that the pork was donated by a neighboring province. His out-of-bounds behavior appears to be an attempt to raise the issue of food supply.

Small-scale protests in parts of Shanghai a few days ago were quickly condemned. Residents were banging their pots at the time, with some government officials saying they were under the influence of “foreign powers.”

But there is one place where China has changed tack.

Hong Kong has severe epidemic prevention restrictions and has been isolated from most of the world for quite some time, but it has never been locked down. Then, it was captured by Omikron.

Hong Kong once recorded the world‘s highest weekly average death rate.

Prof Ben Cowling, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, told me that he estimates that 60% of Hong Kong’s population has been infected and has developed herd immunity to the BA2 variant of the Omicron subtype.

He said he was concerned about another wave of mutants, but “I don’t think that’s going to be a big deal” given the spread of infection the city has just faced.

“My concern with Shanghai is how long this situation can continue,” said Goldman.

He believes that the number of reported cases “will slowly decline”, “but if there is another wave of Omicron, everything will start all over again, maybe in a month, maybe in two months, maybe in three within a month”.

Public discussion of the concept of herd immunity and “coexistence with the virus” in mainland China has been largely shut down, with the focus on the “final victory” called for by President Xi Jinping.

This is a battle against a virus that China declared victory over in the summer of 2020.

But it was a victory Xi Jinping was aiming for as the Communist Party Congress in October loomed. He is looking forward to a third term that will be the first in a generation to be achieved by a party leader.

Defending the core of power is at stake with the CCP’s reputation.

Much of China has been without a trace of the virus for nearly two years. But with the Omikron variant on nerves again, the already fragile economy – which remains critical to global growth and supply chains – is under severe pressure.

It is becoming more and more difficult to justify the closure of the city on the grounds of “clearing the new crown”.