China's financial hub of Shanghai has launched a two-stage lockdown of its 26 million people today, closing bridges and tunnels, and restricting highway traffic in a scramble to contain surging Covid-19 cases.
The snap lockdown, announced by Shanghai's city government yesterday, will split the city in two roughly along the Huangpu River for nine days to allow for "staggered" testing. It is the biggest Covid-related disruption to hit the city.
The order marks a turnaround for the city government, which as late as Saturday denied that Shanghai would be locked down as it pursued a more piecemeal "slicing and gridding" approach to try to rein in infections.
Wu Fan, a member of Shanghai's expert Covid-19 team, told a briefing recent mass testing had found "large scale" infections throughout the city, triggering the stronger response.
"Containing the large-scale outbreak in our city is very important because once infected people are put under control, we have blocked transmission," she said, adding that testing would be carried out until all risks were eliminated.
A record 3,450 asymptomatic virus cases were reported in Shanghai yesterday, accounting for nearly 70% of the nationwide total, along with 50 symptomatic cases, the city government said.
Nationwide, there were 5,134 new asymptomatic and 1,219 symptomatic cases yesterday ,the health authority said in its regular bulletin.
As a major engine of China's economy, Shanghai has been trying to heed President Xi Jinping's call to minimise the impact of Covid controls on businesses and people's lives.
Ms Wu told a briefing on Saturday that Shanghai could not be locked down for long because of the important role it played in the national and even global economy.
