BEIJING - The Chinese megacity of Chengdu exits lockdown on Monday, with its 21 million people allowed to leave their homes and resume most aspects of normal life for the first time since Sept 1, provided they’re tested regularly for Covid-19.
Residents will need to be tested at least once a week for the virus, with a negative result from within the previous 72 hours required to enter public venues and take public transport, according to a statement from the local government.
The capital of the southwestern Sichuan province, Chengdu is the biggest city to have been shuttered as part of the country’s Covid zero strategy since Shanghai’s bruising two-month lockdown earlier this year.
The shorter duration of Chengdu’s stay-at-home order – just over two weeks – removes a source of potential instability for President Xi Jinping, who is expected to proclaim the policy a success at the Communist Party congress in mid-October, despite its high economic and societal costs.
Officials in Chengdu locked down sooner in their outbreak than authorities in Shanghai. That appears to have largely avoided the food and medicine shortages, manufacturing halts and supply-chain snarls that spurred protests and unrest in China’s most metropolitan city, dragging on growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Chengdu’s lockdown has been more in line with Shenzhen’s earlier in the year, with movement restrictions in the technology hub eased after about a week, as cases ebbed.
The course of the lockdown in Chengdu, which will also reopen schools and restaurants, will likely embolden Xi to continue with Covid Zero. He is set to secure a precedent-breaking third term in office at the twice-a-decade leadership summit next month.
While China watchers once expected the strategy to be dialled back following the meeting, projections are now being pushed well into next year, even as the rest of the world adjusts to living with Covid permanently.
China has staked much on avoiding the sort of virus death tolls seen in the US and parts of Europe, making it difficult to exit Covid Zero like other countries that also pursued elimination have, such as Singapore and Australia.
With Covid variants becoming more infectious, that’s meant China is needing to lock down and impose heavy restrictions more often. The nation’s borders remain effectively closed, all cases and their close contacts are quarantined, and testing is a regular part of normal life.
The lifting of the lockdown comes as China’s latest Covid wave eases, with cases plateauing around 1,000 new infections a day.
Dalian city in China’s northern Liaoning province will also exit lockdown from Monday, allowing the normal movement of residents, according to a statement from the local government. The city eased some Covid restrictions on Sept 16, as cases trended down.
The lockdown of Chengdu added to the hardships that residents there and in wider Sichuan province experienced this summer.
The province saw record-breaking heat waves that led to droughts and forest fires, with the government introducing rolling power cuts to conserve electricity.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck western Sichuan at the beginning of the lockdown, with tremors felt in Chengdu. Some residents complained on social media that when they went to evacuate, the fire exits in their buildings had been sealed due to Covid restrictions. BLOOMBERG
