Police have cut tunnels and bridges connecting Pudong, home of Shanghai’s financial district and many major manufacturers, to Puxi. The two areas, separated by the Huangpu River, have been closed for mass testing, with Pudong closed until April 1 and its residents confined to their homes. Closing and testing of Puxi will begin when Pudong reopens and will last until April 5. The police also excluded the motorways that lead outside the city, with anyone who wants to leave for a negative Covid test that was done within 48 hours, reported the state media, citing alerts from Shanghai Police. The lockdown, which goes well beyond previous measures in Shanghai and marked the first time authorities have restricted millions of city dwellers to their homes, has sparked markets as shoppers rushed to buy vegetables. The outbreak in mainland China’s most international financial center is proving to be a major test of the country’s broader coronavirus control strategy. Following an initial blockade of Wuhan in early 2020, authorities have imposed strict restrictions on other cities to eliminate cases, although there have recently been indications that the approach has been mitigated. President Xi Jinping stressed this month the need to “minimize the impact” of the virus on the country’s economy following the blockade of Shenzhen’s southern technology hub. In Shanghai, authorities had pointed out that full-scale lock-in was not necessary a few weeks ago, although buildings with positive cases were often excluded. Some factories in China have set up individual “bubble” systems, an approach comparable to the closed system used for the Winter Olympics in February, which allowed staff to work during the lockdown if they did not leave the facility. Shanghai, with a population of 26 million, recorded just 50 cases on Sunday, according to official figures, but recorded a record 3,450 asymptomatic cases, compared with 5,134 asymptomatic cases in the rest of mainland China. Over the weekend, the Shanghai World Expo and Exhibition Center, a huge building in the Pudong area that hosted the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, opened as a quarantine center for mild and asymptomatic cases. The city’s response to the outbreak contrasts with that received in Hong Kong, which has recorded more than 1 million cases in the past two months after being largely free of infections for nearly two years. Plans for mass testing in the territory, which also sparked panic markets, have recently been downgraded due to the huge scale of infections.

China’s stock market started the week with a drop after the news of the lockdown in Shanghai, with the country’s CSI 300 benchmark falling as low as 2 percent on Monday morning, as traders weighed the implications for the country’s wider strategy . “In the near future, China will insist on a zero-tolerance approach,” said Bruce Pang, head of research at China Renaissance. He added that while supply chain shocks were minimal, the outbreaks were likely to affect economic growth as Chinese consumers faced greater uncertainty. Pang said official statements, including the last meeting of the Chinese Communist Party’s political bureau, “suggest any adjustment. [to containment strategies] will come with the condition of eliminating the infection “. Additional references by Wang Xueqiao in Shanghai