Beijing takes no prisoners in virus battle

BEIJING • China's capital Beijing has stepped up quarantine efforts in order to end its month-old Covid-19 outbreak as fresh signs of frustration emerged in Shanghai.

Beijing reported 48 new cases for Monday among its population of 22 million, with Shanghai reporting fewer than 500 among its 25 million residents.

Nevertheless, Chinese Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan has called for more thorough measures to cut virus transmission and adhere to the country's zero-tolerance policy during an inspection tour in Beijing, state agency Xinhua reported yesterday.

The situation in Beijing was manageable, but containment efforts cannot ease, she said, according to Xinhua.

In one example, around 1,800 people in a city neighbourhood were relocated to Zhangjiakou city in the nearby Hebei province for quarantine, the state-backed Beijing Daily reported.

Meanwhile, 11 of Beijing's 16 districts have issued work-from-home instructions of varying degrees of severity, while public transport across the capital has been reduced and some shopping malls and other venues closed.

In Shanghai, the authorities plan to keep most restrictions in place this month, before a more complete lifting of the two-month-old lockdown from June 1.

Even then, public venues will have to cap people flows at 75 per cent of capacity.

More people have been allowed to leave their homes for brief periods over the past week, and more supermarkets and pharmacies were authorised to reopen and provide deliveries.

But other lower-level officials have separately tightened restrictions in some neighbourhoods, ordering residents back indoors to cement progress achieved so far during the city's final lap towards exiting the lockdown.

That has led to frustration and complaints of uneven treatment among some residents.

While the zero-tolerance approach covers the entire city, residents in some compounds have been allowed to move in and out of their homes freely. But others have been told they can only go out for a few hours, and many of those stuck indoors have been told nothing.

Videos on social media this week showed residents arguing with officials to be let out of their residential compounds.

The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

One resident told Reuters that people in his compound decided on the WeChat social media platform to go out in groups.

"Let's strike at our gate tonight to demand that we be allowed to go out like many of other compounds in the neighbourhood," he quoted one of his neighbours as saying in the group chat.

A video he shared then showed a group of people arguing at the entrance of the compound with a man who described himself as a sub-district official, who asked the residents to go back inside and discuss the situation.

People in at least two other compounds were planning to try going outside despite not being told they were allowed to do so, other residents said.

Nomura analysts estimate that 26 Chinese cities were implementing full or partial lockdowns or other Covid-19 measures as at Monday, accounting for 208 million people and 20.5 per cent of China's economic output.

That would be down from 271 million the week before and 27 per cent of output.

REUTERS