Shanghai under China’s largest lockdown of COVID-19 pandemic

A two-part lockdown in China’s largest city Shanghai has started, with the goal of stamping out a surge in cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The video above includes scenes from Shanghai Monday.

According to the local government, Shanghai’s Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from Monday to Friday as mass testing gets underway. In the second phase, the downtown area west of the Huangpu River that divides the city will start its own five-day lockdown Friday.

“Through the analysis of screening results, we found that there are two unique features of epidemic outbreak in Shanghai. The first is regional gathering, and the other is that infected people in the transmission chain scattered across the city,” Wu Fan, an expert of the Shanghai leading group for COVID-19 prevention and control, said Monday. “After further comprehensive research, it is necessary to take further decisive measures to quickly cut off latent social transmission, mainly by further reducing the flow of people.”

Residents will be required to stay home and deliveries will be left at checkpoints to ensure there is no contact with the outside world. Offices and all businesses not considered essential will be closed and public transport suspended.

The Shanghai lockdown is the most extensive in China since the Wuhan lockdown at the very beginning of the pandemic. Shanghai had managed its smaller previous outbreaks with limited lockdowns of housing compounds and workplaces where the virus was spreading.

Many communities within Shanghai have already been locked down for the past week. However, with the news of a more extensive lockdown came panic purchasing over the weekend.

“It is also difficult to get vegetables from wholesale markets. Many wholesale markets are now closed. Some wholesalers sold vegetables to us along the streets. Some vendors are reluctant to buy in vegetables,” wet market vendor Bi Yingwu said Monday. “If we cannot get vegetables from wholesalers or if the wet market is closed, we are finished.”

Shanghai detected another 3,500 cases of infection on Sunday. However, all but 50 people who tested positive were asymptomatic. According to the National Health Commission, nationwide there were 1,219 symptomatic cases and 4,996 asymptomatic cases on Sunday.