SHANGHAI (AP) — Traffic, pedestrians and runners reappeared on the streets of Shanghai on Wednesday as China’s largest city began returning to normal amid the easing of a strict two-month COVID-19 lockdown that sparked protests against its brutal implementation.
The Shanghai Communist Party Committee, the city’s highest hard-line political body, has published a letter online proclaiming the good fortune of the closure and thanking citizens for their “support and contributions. “
While protecting the radical “zero COVID” policy of President and Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, the country’s leaders seem to recognize the public’s reaction to the measures noted as a violation of the rights to privacy and participation in the functioning of government, already severely limited.
In one such step, the Cabinet’s joint mechanism and prevention on Tuesday issued a letter setting out regulations prohibiting “non-standard, undeniable and coarse internal disinfection” through commonly untrained groups in Shanghai and elsewhere that left broken houses and led to reports of asset theft. .
Full bus and subway service in Shanghai was restored from Wednesday, and rail links with the rest of China will follow. However, more than half a million people in the city of 25 million remain low or in designated spaces as cases of the virus are still detected.
The government says all restrictions will be lifted gradually, but local community committees still have plenty of strength to implement contradictory and arbitrary policies. Negative PCR tests for COVID-19 conducted in the past 48 hours also remain the norm in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere. to obtain permission to enter public places.
This measure did not deter Shanghai citizens from gathering outdoors to eat and drink under the supervision of police deployed to discourage the formation of giant crowds.
“With the lifting of the lockdown, I feel very happy. Today I feel what I feel about the Chinese New Year: that kind of atmosphere and joy,” said Wang Xiaowei, 34, who moved to Shanghai from the inner province of Guizhou recently. week before the lockdown began.
Liu Ruilin, 18, said she wouldn’t be if her construction security guard let her and others out Tuesday night. The restriction ended precisely at midnight, he said.
“Then we said, ‘Let’s move on to the Bund for fun,'” he said in the city’s historic riverside district. They’re here. I feel quite passionate, quite excited.
Schools will partially reopen voluntarily, and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and pharmacies will reopen at no more than 75% of their total capacity. Cinemas and gyms will remain closed.
On Wednesday, the health government reported only 15 new cases of COVID-19 in Shanghai, compared to a record 20,000 cases in April.
Some grocery stores and markets have reopened and some citizens have won passes that allow them to faint for a few hours at a time.
The closure has sparked an exodus of Chinese and foreign residents, with crowds forming outside the city’s Hongqiao station, where only a few exercises have resumed.
Even though the rest of the world has opened up, China has adhered to a “COVID zero” strategy that calls for lockdowns, mass testing, and isolation in centralized services for anyone who is inflamed or in contact with who tests positive. .
The country’s borders also remain largely closed and the government has tightened requirements for issuing passports and permits abroad.
At least a portion of foreign companies in Shanghai are waiting until next week to reopen while they apply hygiene measures, said Bettina Schoen-Behanzin, vice president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. As a precaution, many corporations plan to have only part of their site at a time.
“There is still some uncertainty and concern that if there is a positive case in the construction or in your complex, you may be locked up again,” said Schoen-Behanzin, who works in Shanghai.
Strict restrictions in Shanghai, the country’s advertising capital and home to the world’s busiest port, have slowed Chinese economic activity and disrupted production and trade.
Retail sales fell 11 percent, worse than expected in April from a year earlier, according to government data. Car sales fell nearly a portion from a year earlier, according to the China Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Private sector forecasters have cut their estimates of this year’s economic expansion to just 2 percent, well below the ruling Communist Party’s target of 5. 5 percent. Some expect production to decline in the three months to June.
“The economy is in crisis,” Schoen-Behanzin said.
The port of Shanghai, the busiest in the world, regained between 80 and 85 percent of its overall operating capacity, according to Schoen-Behanzin. He cited knowing that the port had a backlog of 260,000 shipping boxes in April.
“The rest of the world will feel those delays (until) June or July,” he said.
Most likely, the city will revel in a “mass exodus” of foreign nationals this summer, “especially families with young children,” Schoen-Behanzin said. He said that part of Shanghai’s foreign citizens have already left in the past two years.
“People are sick of those lockdowns,” he said. It’s not safe, especially if you have small children. “