Shanghai reports record daily Covid-19 deaths in current outbreak, Beijing warns of ‘grim’ situation

SHANGHAI (BLOOMBERG, AFP) - Shanghai reported its highest number of daily Covid-19 deaths in the current outbreak, as China continued to stick to its Covid-19-zero policy with strict lockdown measures imposed in the city.

The city recorded 39 fatalities for Saturday (April 23), bringing its total number of virus-related deaths to 87 since late February, according to a report on Sunday by the Shanghai Health Commission.

The average age of the people who died was 78.7 and all had underlying diseases, according to the report.

Shanghai logged 21,058 new local Covid-19 infections, the vast majority of which were mild or asymptomatic cases, the commission said. The previous day, the city reported 23,370 new local cases and 12 deaths.

The financial centre is entering its fourth week of strict lockdown, while people living in the eastern part of the city, and neighborhoods with earlier reported cases, have been confined to their homes for even longer.

Frustration among residents has been building due to a lack of access to food or medical care, poor-quality government rations and the location of quarantine centres.

The municipal government said it would adopt nine actions from Friday to achieve the goal of "no community spread", a milestone that has eluded the city despite weeks of lockdown.

The announcement damped some people's expectations that restrictions would be gradually eased amid signs that the outbreak may have peaked.

The authorities vowed to strictly implement rules, including making sure people do not leave their homes in restricted areas.

The government measures have caused mounting frustration among residents.

When a viral video showing the impact of the prolonged coronavirus lockdown on Shanghai's residents was taken down by China's Internet censors on Saturday, it triggered an online backlash.

The issues facing residents were chronicled in the six-minute video, titled Voice Of April, which was widely shared on Weibo and WeChat - major social media platforms in China.

Shot against a simple aerial black-and-white view of the city, the video opens with audio clips from media briefings in March where officials say Shanghai will not have a citywide lockdown.

The decision was quickly reversed by April as the highly transmissible Omicron variant led to a spike in infections.

As the camera pans across the empty streets of Shanghai, audio clips are played in chronological order showing the dire situation of residents shunted into their homes without preparation.

"We have gone to the hospital twice, but no one is there to treat us," a man whose father is ill is heard saying.

In another, a woman complains about not being allowed back home when she returned from hospital after chemotherapy.

There is also a clip of residents yelling: Thank you, Big Whites - a nickname for health staff dressed in white personal protective equipment and deployed to various neighbourhoods.

Internet censors battled for hours on Saturday to scrub the video from Weibo and Wechat, as netizens kept uploading it into different cloud services.

The swift censorship of the video - which was posted by an anonymous account - led to an online backlash.

"The video was just presenting raw facts. There is nothing provocative!" said one commentator on Weibo.

"Its content is nothing new... But the fact of seeing that even that is censored, it bothers me," wrote another.

Voice Of April is not accessible on any major social media platform in China as at Saturday afternoon, but it can still be viewed on YouTube.

Public criticism against the government is extremely rare, but the prolonged restrictions are testing the patience of the Chinese - with protest footage circulating on social media faster than censors can delete it.

Meanwhile 22 more infections were reported in Beijing, after warnings from an official on Saturday that the city must take urgent action.

Health official Pang Xinghuo said preliminary observations suggested Covid-19 had been “spreading invisibly” within the capital for a week now, affecting “schools, tour groups and many families”.

“The risk of continued and hidden transmission is high, and the situation is grim,” Tian Wei of Beijing’s Municipal Party Committee told a press briefing.

“The whole city of Beijing must act immediately.”

Targeted lockdowns have already been imposed on some communities where Covid-19 cases have been found, while some fitness studios in the capital said they were suspending classes indefinitely.

Beijing has also imposed tight controls on entry to the city, with travellers required to have a negative Covid-19 test from within 48 hours.

People who have travelled to cities or counties where just a single Covid-19 case has been reported in the past two weeks are barred entry.