Shanghai rolls out new Covid-19 testing, some areas in China extend lockdowns

SHANGHAI/BEIJING • Several large Chinese cities, including Shanghai, are rolling out new mass testing or extending lockdowns on millions of residents to counter new clusters of Covid-19 infections, with some measures being criticised on the Internet.

China has reported an average of around 390 local daily infections in the seven days ending on Sunday, higher than about 340 seven days earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on official data as at yesterday.

While that is tiny compared with a resurgence in other parts of Asia, China is adamant about implementing its dynamic zero-Covid-19 policy of eliminating outbreaks as soon as they emerge.

The commercial hub of Shanghai, yet to fully recover from the harsh two-month lockdown in spring and still reporting daily sporadic cases, plans to hold mass testing in many of its 16 districts and in some smaller areas where new infections had been reported recently, after similar testing last week.

"There is still an epidemic risk at the community level so far," the city government said in a statement.

Shanghai reported more than a dozen new cases but none was found outside quarantined areas, local government data showed yesterday.

The northern city of Tianjin, which launched multiple rounds of mass testing in recent months to curb earlier outbreaks, said yesterday that it is again testing its more than 12 million residents, after two local infections were found.

In the north-western city of Lanzhou, a lockdown in four major districts with around three million residents that started last week has been extended to July 24.

In the central Chinese city of Zhumadian, lockdowns for several million people in a few towns under its jurisdiction were extended for a few days until yesterday or today.

The south-western city of Chengdu said yesterday it suspended various entertainment and cultural venues, widening such curbs over the weekend that had been limited to a few districts.

The capital Beijing, after a week of zero local infections, found two local cases yesterday - one international flight crew member and the person's roommate. The authorities have sealed affected buildings.

The authorities in the southern region of Guangxi said late on Sunday that they removed two officials in the city of Beihai from their jobs for acting poorly in their Covid-19 response.

Beihai, with a population of 1.9 million and currently clocking over 500 infections, has launched multiple rounds of mass testing and locked down some areas. As at Sunday, over 2,000 tourists were stuck in the city.

In the southern city of Guangzhou, Covid-19 control staff broke the locks of apartment doors without residents' consent, stirring an outcry on social media over the weekend. The authorities in one district in Guangzhou yesterday apologised to residents.

The issue was among the top trending topics on China's Twitter-like social media Weibo. "It's too horrifying, too ridiculous," wrote a Weibo user. "No humanity, no law."

In the north-eastern city of Changchun, clear of local infections since mid-May, subway passengers were told to wear N95 masks throughout their rides. Many cities, including Beijing, mandate only surgical masks.

REUTERS