Millions of Chinese in the affected areas have been locked across the city by an Omicron-led outbreak that has increased the daily number of cases, although they remain insignificant compared to other countries. Shanghai, however, aims to ease the turmoil with a more targeted approach characterized by 48-hour individual neighborhood lockdowns and large-scale trials, while largely keeping the metropolis of 25 million people in operation. In a daily press conference in Shanghai on Saturday, officials spoke of the importance of avoiding a complete blockade of the huge port city. “If Shanghai, our city, stopped completely, there would be a lot of international cargo ships floating in the East China Sea,” said Wu Fan, a physician in the city’s pandemic working group. “This will affect the entire national economy and the world economy.” Wu made the comments as city officials also announced that they would begin handing out self-monitoring kits to Shanghai residents, as the latest sign that the government is expanding its response to the pandemic. The northeastern province of Jilin also said it had begun distributing 500,000 kits of rapid antigen. Shanghai and Jilin were the areas hardest hit by the epidemic, which took off in early March. China had largely kept the coronavirus – which first appeared in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 – under control through its strict zero-tolerance measures. But this top-down approach is increasingly being challenged amid concerns about the public’s financial impact and “pandemic fatigue”, especially given Omicron’s less severe symptoms. The National Health Commission announced two weeks ago that it will introduce the sale of rapid antigen self-test kits in China for the first time and they have started to appear on the shelves of pharmacies. But Saturday’s announcements appeared to signal their first widespread use as part of official pandemic control measures. China reported 5,600 new confirmed domestic transmissions on Saturday, most of them asymptomatic. Chinese authorities watched nervously as the deadly Omicron blast in Hong Kong sparked market panic and claimed a large number of unvaccinated seniors in the southern Chinese city. Its subsequent spread to mainland China has posed a dilemma for authorities struggling with how strongly they should react. On Wednesday, Shanghai Infectious Diseases Specialist Zhang Wenhong, a leading doctor in the city’s pandemic fight, called for anti-virus measures to be balanced by maintaining a “normal life.” The comments on his widely followed blog showed increasing official tolerance for voices questioning the lockdown approach. Shanghai’s milder strategy has so far failed to stop the rise in cases, and local lockdowns have sparked online whining and grocery shopping in some areas. Shanghai reported another sharp increase in new local broadcasts to 2,269 – about 40% of the national total.
