Shanghai has lifted a painful two-month blockade to relieve the city’s 25 million residents, with authorities dismantling fences around housing complexes and ripping off police tape from squares and public buildings.
Most residents have spent the past two months under a relentless blockade that has resulted in loss of income, stress and despair for millions of people struggling to access food or emergency health care.
Prolonged isolation has fueled public anger and rare protests in China’s most populous metropolis and affected the city’s manufacturing and export economy, disrupting supply chains in China and around the world and slowing it down. international trade.
Life is expected to return to normal, starting on Wednesday, when season tickets issued by residential buildings will be discarded for people to leave for a few hours, public transport will resume and residents will be able to return to work. the work.
Online, jubilant residents have been posting memes and photos all Tuesday of them raising a toast for the end of confinement. “We often said that Shanghai was ‘liberated’ in 1949. Today, it’s another ‘liberation’!” wrote a WeChat user, posting a 1949 newspaper clip.
“After two months of meaningless home confinement, I’m finally free!” wrote another, expressing his enthusiasm for lifting the restrictions, but also criticizing the harsh policy of blockade that has altered his life and that of others in the last two months.
Many employees, both civil servants and employees of private companies, have been asked to return to work. Joseph Mak, who works in education in Shanghai, said: “Now that I’m back to work so suddenly, I feel a little nervous … It’s hard to believe it’s happening.”
But the sidewalk relief only applies to low-risk areas, about 22.5 million people. Residents of these areas will still have to wear masks and are discouraged from meeting. Dinner inside restaurants is still prohibited. Stores can operate at 75% capacity. The gyms will reopen later.
Residents will be required to take Covid tests every 72 hours to take public transportation and enter public places. There is still a hard quarantine for anyone who gives positive and their close contacts.
A resident cuts his hair on a street in Shanghai. Photo: Aly Song / Reuters
Two years after the Covid pandemic, China is the only country among the major countries to pursue an uncompromising “zero Covid” policy that aims to eradicate all outbreaks as soon as they occur at any cost. It remains to be seen whether frequent testing can keep Omicron under control.
Todd Pearson, the managing director of Camel Hospitality Group, which operates eight restaurants, four bars and three gyms in Shanghai and neighboring Suzhou, is suspicious.
Their restaurants can only make deliveries, which account for about 5% of revenue, not enough to pay salaries and rent. At least from midnight their workers, who have been sleeping in restaurants, stuck there by strict confinement rules, can finally return home.
“I hope they speed things up quickly to restart the economy,” Pearson said. “I just hope it’s not at the expense of more outbreaks. I’m not sure many companies or people can handle much more.”
Economic activity in China recovered somewhat in May from a sad April as Covid’s slowdowns at major manufacturing centers gradually eased, although movement controls still reduced demand and restrict production.
The activity of the factories stood at a maximum of three months in May, but contracted with respect to a year earlier.
On Tuesday, the British Chamber of Commerce of China released its annual position paper, warning that Covid’s restrictions and uncertainty about the future were having a negative impact on British companies in China. A poll of more than 600 members found that 74% were “severely affected” by Covid’s zero policies, and nearly 50% delayed planning investments.
“All we can expect is more uncertainty, disruptions and potentially more blockades,” while China continues with its zero-Covid targets, said House Speaker Julian MacCormac.
“There is a real nervousness and worry like something [Shanghai] could happen again in the current environment “.
The report found that 43% of member companies faced challenges, such as hiring foreign talent, and 23% had a net decline in foreign staff. He said 41% predicted his staff would leave in a year.
Shanghai reported 31 cases on May 30, down from 67 the day before, all within controlled areas.
Reuters contributed to this report.