SHANGHAI/BEIJING – China’s commercial capital of Shanghai was dealt a blow on Monday as authorities reported 58 new COVID-19 cases outside quarantine areas while Beijing pressed on with testing millions of its people on a May Day holiday few were celebrating.
Tough coronavirus measures in Shanghai have stirred rare public anger, with millions of the city’s 25 million people confined indoors for more than a month, some sealed inside fenced off residential compounds, and many struggling to secure daily necessities.
Shanghai residents breathed a sigh of relief at the weekend on news that no cases had been confirmed outside quarantine areas for two days, but bad news came on Monday with the report of the 58 new infections.
Authorities did not comment on the new cases at a media briefing but members of the public weighed in online.
“They announced that they stamped out cases at the community level too early,” one person commented on the Weibo social media platform.
But many people also took heart from data that showed an encouraging trend with 32 new deaths on Sunday, compared with 38 a day earlier, and 6,606 new asymptomatic cases, from 7,084 the previous day.
“There is hope for May,” said another Weibo user according to Reuters.
The coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and for the two years authorities managed to keep outbreaks largely under control with lockdowns and travel bans.
But the fast-spreading Omicron variant has tested China’s “zero-COVID” policy this year, an important one for President Xi Jinping who is expected to secure a precendent-breaking third leadership term.
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