New cases trigger more testing in Shanghai, but reopening on track

SHANGHAI/BEIJING • Shanghai announced its first new Covid-19 cases outside quarantined areas in five days yesterday, triggering stricter curbs and mass testing in one district, but plans to end a prolonged city-wide lockdown on June 1 appeared on track.

The commercial hub of 25 million found three new cases in the same family in Qingpu district.

All had taken three doses of vaccine and their infections were discovered during regular testing, the authorities said.

The three had not left their district over the past 14 days but had visited at least four places, all of which were sealed off and were being disinfected.

The area's more than 200,000 people have been retested and all results were negative.

Officials said steps in the gradual reopening of Shanghai were going ahead, with suburban parks due to open from tomorrow.

Other parks could open from next month if they met certain conditions but leisure facilities in parks would remain closed.

A plan to reopen four metro lines from tomorrow also remained on track, the city government said.

Shanghai has been allowing more people to leave their homes in recent days, with many residential compounds issuing a limited number of passes for brief walks or trips to the supermarket.

Still, most people remained stuck indoors, relying on delivery apps for their shopping and government rations.

The almost complete shutdown of Shanghai and strict measures in other cities are the result of a national "zero-Covid" policy to end all outbreaks as soon as they occur, in contrast with the resumption of normal life in the rest of the world.

Beijing, home to 22 million people, reported 62 new Covid-19 infections for Thursday, up from 55 a day earlier.

China's capital has struggled to end an outbreak since late last month despite significant curbs on movement, with many residents working from home and a range of shops and venues closed.

Beijing's daily caseload, however, has remained in the dozens rather than exploding like Shanghai's outbreak did.

Meanwhile, Tesla plans to keep employees at its Shanghai factory working in a closed-loop system - where staff are ferried to and from work and tested for Covid-19 regularly - until mid-June, sources said.

Thousands of the electric carmaker's workers have been sleeping on the floor of Tesla's factory south of Shanghai doing 12-hour shifts, six days a week, to reboot production after a weeks-long pause because of the lockdown.

The sources said Tesla wants to move those workers into a dormitory and keep them in a form of closed loop until June 13.

It is also trying to start a second shift at the factory as soon as next week so that car production can resume operating around the clock, the sources said.

Executives are now negotiating with the Shanghai authorities over accommodation for workers on the existing and planned shifts.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG