Shanghai, China’s largest city, has ordered mass testing on all 1.3 million residents of its downtown Yangpu district on Friday, confining them to their homes at least until the results are known.
The demand echoes measures imposed over the summer, which resulted in a two-month lockdown of the entire city of 25 million people, wreaking havoc on the local economy and sparking rare clashes between residents and authorities.
Authorities initially stated that the lockdown would last only a few days, but the deadline was repeatedly extended. China has shown no signs of abandoning its hardline “zero-COVID” policy since a major Communist Party congress concluded this week by awarding authoritarian leader Xi Jinping a third five-year term and packing top bodies with his loyalists.
Strict measures have been imposed across the country, from Shanghai in the east to Tibet in the west, where there have also been reports of anti-lockdown protests.
Many Chinese had hoped for a relaxation of the strict anti-COVID-19 protocols, which have remained in place despite the fact that the rest of the world has opened up. China’s borders remain largely closed, with arrivals subject to a 10-day quarantine at a designated location. Despite the fact that the World Health Organization has called the strategy unsustainable, China credits it with keeping case numbers and deaths at a fraction of those in other countries, though Beijing’s figures have frequently been called into question.
China reported 1,337 new cases, the majority of which were asymptomatic, and no new deaths on Friday. Shanghai reported 11 asymptomatic cases, while Tibet reported one confirmed symptomatic case and five asymptomatic cases. China claims to have recorded 258,660 cases and 5,226 deaths since the pandemic was first detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan.
Shanghai plans to build a permanent quarantine centre on an island in the Huangpu River that divides the financial hub, indicating that China’s tough measures will be maintained in the long run.
The 1.6 billion yuan ($221 million) Fuxing Island project will expand existing facilities to add 3,009 isolation rooms and 3,250 beds, with construction expected to take six months.