Hopes rise in Shanghai’s battle against Covid-19 as two districts report no new cases

SHANGHAI (REUTERS) - Shanghai reported on Wednesday (April 20) no new cases of Covid-19 outside quarantined areas in two districts, raising hopes that the tide was turning in its battle against the epidemic, with some factories around the city making a gradual return to work.  

In an event highly-publicised on state media, electric car company Tesla Inc, resumed production at its Shanghai plant on Tuesday, after a stoppage of more than three weeks.  

The US carmaker was on a list of 666 firms announced by the Chinese government last week, that would be given priority to reopen or keep their operations running in Shanghai.  

Stringent lockdown measures enforced after the outbreak that began in early March have left the city’s 25 million people struggling with the loss of income, irregular food supplies, separation of families and poor quarantine conditions.  

On Wednesday, Shanghai health official Wu Qianyu gave them an encouraging situation report during a daily news conference.  

"The city’s epidemic situation in recent days has shown a downward trend, the number of streets and towns reporting more than 100 daily cases has fallen consecutively for three days, community spread has been effectively curbed," she said.  

While 16.3 million people are still not allowed to leave their flats or housing compounds, 7.85 million can return to factories or walk outside – an increase of 2 million from last week, she said.

But some people subject to looser movement restrictions say they still need permission from neighbourhood officials to go out and have been unable to obtain it.

She said the trend had resulted in a significant reduction in the number of people resident in "sealed areas", where the strictest curbs on movement are enforced.  

Shanghai reported 16,407 new local asymptomatic coronavirus cases for April 19, down from 17,332 on the previous day. Symptomatic cases stood at 2,494, down from 3,084.  

City authorities said seven people infected with Covid-19 died on Tuesday, the same number as on Monday.

Shanghai has reported 17 deaths since the latest outbreak began, all in the past three days.  

Numerous residents, however, have said that a family member had died after contracting Covid-19 since early March, but cases had not been included in official statistics, raising doubts over their accuracy.

The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to questions regarding the death toll.  

Sources told Reuters that Shanghai aims to stop the spread of Covid-19 outside quarantined areas by Wednesday.  

Authorities have ramped up daily testing of residents this week, as well as transfers of positive cases and their close contacts to quarantine centres outside Shanghai.

Social media users have shared stories of busloads of residents taken from home and sent into quarantine, including babies and the elderly.

There were 390 new cases outside quarantined areas on Tuesday, down from 550 on Monday.

And two of the city’s 16 districts, Jinshan and Chongming, reported no new cases outside quarantined areas, while the case numbers reported in seven other districts were in the single digits.

Other cities that have been under lockdown began easing curbs once they halted transmission outside of quarantined areas.   

A key priority once life outside resumes in Shanghai is to boost lagging vaccination rates among the elderly, health officials said. Only 62 per cent of residents over the age of 60 had been fully vaccinated, with 38 per cent having taken a booster.

China’s strict measures to control the pandemic, including the lockdown in Shanghai and other affected cities, have hurt the world’s second largest economy and global supply chains.  

And while prioritised firms have begun to resume factory operations, analysts do not expect a straight line recovery in production.  

Most workers will have to live onsite and factories must deal with disrupted supply lines and access to markets, with closures ordered by authorities in other cities and port and trucking problems snarling supply chains.  

In Kunshan, a city neighbouring Shanghai where many suppliers to the likes of Apple are located, Taiwanese firms making chip and electronic components reported a mixed picture on work resumption, with some warning deliveries would be postponed until next month.

Tesla will ramp up the production in the next three to four days, a company manager told Shanghai Television on Tuesday.

But a source close to the matter cautioned the assembly line remained under stress and the restart was not a return to full production.

Elsewhere, chip substrate and printed circuit board maker Unimicron Technology Corp said on Wednesday it would gradually resume operations at its plant in Kunshan.

Asia Electronic Material Co Ltd, which makes parts for laptops, mobile phones and digital cameras, said its plant in Kunshan would stay closed.