In China's Shanghai: 10k Covid cases this week and the biggest lockdown in 2 years

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus is on a rampage in China as Shanghai has reported 10,000 cases in the last week, with 3,500 new cases on March 28. Due to the city's exponentially rising cases, Shanghai has now gone on its biggest lockdown yet since the begining of the pandemic. In March itself, China has reported 56,000 confirmed cases across the country.

The citywide lockdown will take place in two phases:

• In the first phase, Shanghai’s Pudong district and nearby areas will be locked down from March 28 to April 1, and mass testing will take place.
• In the second phase, the downtown area of Puxi in the west of Huangpu River will begin its lockdown on April 1 and continue till April 5. 

During both phases of the lockdown, residents of each area will be asked to stay at home and deliveries will be made at certain checkpoints. Along with this, non-essential businesses and public transport will be shut. The Tomb Sweeping Festival, meant to be held on April 5, has been moved online. Instead of in-person observations, memorials will be held online. 

Although residents are not allowed to leave their houses in Shanghai, but for those who need to leave, they would be required to produce a negative nucleic acid test within 48 hours.

Infectious disease specialist, Lu Hongzhou, previously based in Shanghai and currently heading Shenzhen’s medical expert team on pandemic control, has said that the massive spread of the virus is 'affecting' people's lives as well as creating a burden on the city's health system. Lu said, "If [the outbreak] drags on longer, its impact on Shanghai’s economy will be even greater."

Mass nucleic acid tests will also be conducted in Shanghai in order to 'cut hidden transmission routes among communities'. An expert from the Shanghai's anti-epidemic leading expert team, Wu Fan told a press briefing on March 27, "It's necessary to conduct strict measures to reduce people flow and find the hidden transmission routes."

Out of the 3,500 locally transmitted cases reported in Shanghai on March 28, 50 were symptomatic and 3,450 were asymptomatic. Out of the 3,450 cases found, 2,833 were detected under the closed-loop mechanism (complete isolation from the world) indicating that the spread occured through hidden transmission routes. 

Shanghai announced its biggest lockdown a day after Shenzhen announced that residents of the tech city could now return to their normal lives, post hitting the "slow button to stem the spread of the Covid-19" for a week. Prior to Shanghai, Shenzhen utilised different measures across areas to control its Covid-19 cases. 

Even though Northeast China's Jilin province is under strict measures, the province continues to record high number of cases. The city is currently enforcing multiple restrictions including travel bans and a partial lockdown in city of Changchun.

Shanghai's Covid-19 prevention and control office stated in an announcement on March 27 that the new restrictions are aimed towards "curbing the virus spread, protecting people’s life and health, and achieving the dynamic zero-Covid target as soon as possible."

Authorities in Shanghai assured residents on March 28 that they are conducting measures that include 'increasing purchase quantity, channels and ensuring the normal operation of certain enterprises providing daily commodities' for residents to make sure that mass panic over limited supplies does not take place in the city.