SHANGHAI • China is starting to get back to work. More than six weeks after its leaders virtually shut down the world's second-largest economy to stop a relentless coronavirus outbreak, factories are reopening and offices filling up.

That is little solace to Mr Zhang Xu. Piles of windshields - some broken, others new and ready to be installed - sit untouched at his car repair shop in a blue-collar neighbourhood in Shanghai. One of his two employees is still stuck in a faraway village. But that matters little, because Mr Zhang has no customers.