China reacts drastically / The Corona scare in Shanghai
“Please rein in your soul’s need for freedom. Don’t open the window, don’t sing. Your behavior carries the risk of transmitting viruses.” This announcement can be heard on a video that is said to have been recorded in Shanghai, China. A drone flies through a residential area and warns the residents.
Other videos show a robot dog running through the streets of the metropolis. A megaphone is strapped to his back. The automated voice points out hygiene measures and the current lockdown.
These are scenes reminiscent of a science fiction film. And yet they are reality in Shanghai. The most populous city in China has been fighting the rising number of corona infections for weeks. On Monday, the record was broken for the tenth day in a row: the authorities reported 26,087 cases.
Disturbing exceptions from Shanghai
Recordings from Shanghai are becoming increasingly disturbing: dogs and cats are beaten to death – allegedly because they come from households in which residents were infected. People are forcibly taken to quarantine shelters. Children are taken away in protective suits without their parents.
Residents who publicly oppose the lockdown measures are being held in check with devices resembling tongs.
People fight over food. Residents call for help from balconies for fear of starving – because some supermarkets are closed and many delivery services are overloaded. Members of neighborhood committees are filmed welding front doors shut, apparently to prevent people from leaving their homes.
Despite the strict censorship in China, recordings showing the depressing conditions on site are repeatedly being released to the public. See them here or in the video above.
Shanghai has been under lockdown for two weeks
It seems the Chinese government has lost control of the Corona chaos. While the numbers are still small compared to major American or European cities, China is the largest outbreak since Wuhan 2019, where the pandemic started. 90 percent of the country’s infections come from Shanghai.
At the same time, the People’s Republic is one of the last countries in the world to stick to a zero-Covid strategy: strict lockdowns and mass testing are intended to avoid any contagion. Accordingly, Shanghai has been completely or partially sealed off for two weeks. About 25 million people have been ordered to stay at home.
Anyone who becomes infected has to go to a state isolation facility. The hygienic conditions there are said to be catastrophic. “Anyone who is not sick will be there. Being at home is the greatest happiness at the moment,” said a woman from Shanghai to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. At least the controversial measure that infected children are separated from their parents has now been relaxed again.
In the financial center of the economic metropolis, many bankers and stock traders now sleep in their offices on camping beds and eat instant noodles. Because the heart of the People’s Republic’s financial economy should continue to beat despite the tough anti-Covid measures.
While Shanghai’s financial markets are still largely uninterrupted, there are increasing signs of trouble. Companies put plans for a stock market listing on hold. The yuan’s trading volume has already slipped past a two-year low.
Employees who have stayed in the offices are given air mattresses, pillows and blankets, for example, and are dependent on sparse washing facilities. “Colleagues have to share a shabby shower room in the building,” complained one foreign banker. Since March 28, an estimated 20,000 financial market professionals and other workers have holed up in their office towers in Lujiazui District.
BA.2 puts the zero Covid strategy to the test
The strict rules are increasingly causing displeasure among the population. Those who are brave join small protest groups – and face violence, fines or even imprisonment.
The omicron variant BA.2 puts China’s corona policy to a hard test: “The virus spread quickly and in a hidden way,” said Vice Party leader Gu Honghui. Previously, head of state Xi Jinping had consistently defended his strategy: “Foreign athletes told us that if there was a gold medal for fighting epidemics, China would get it,” Xi said at a ceremony honoring participants at this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The Chinese government sees its corona strategy and the success in keeping the number of infections comparatively low over the past two years as proof of the superiority of the communist system over western democracies. Failure is not allowed and would also harm President Xi.
Low immunization coverage in the elderly population is a problem
But now natural immunity is lacking as China has seen few infections so far. For comparison: In Germany the infection rate is 27.27 percent, in China it is only 0.03 percent (as of April 11).
The low vaccination rate in the elderly population is also a major problem: only 46.9 percent of those over 80 are said to have received two doses of the vaccine, the “South China Morning Post” reported. For those over 60, it is around 74 percent. In mid-March, Zeng Yixin of the National Health Administration said the vaccination rate was “still very low”. Only 20 percent of those over 80 would have received a booster.
The risks of a low vaccination rate among the elderly population were recently observed in Hong Kong: In March, the world’s highest death rate among corona patients in relation to the population was measured there: more than 25 per 100,000 inhabitants. In ninety percent of the cases, it hit older people without adequate vaccination protection.
Younger residents were prioritized for vaccinations
The main reason why many older people in China are not vaccinated at all or not sufficiently vaccinated is that the country did not prioritize the elderly at the beginning of its vaccination campaign, but rather the younger people who travel and go to work. In addition, skepticism about medicines in China is relatively high, as the sinologist Klaus Mühlhahn explained in an interview with t-online.
As the pandemic progressed, the zero-Covid strategy also gave the elderly a “false sense of security,” said Yanzhong Huang, a Chinese healthcare professional at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in New York, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Due to the isolation of regions where infections were discovered, the number of infections during the pandemic was comparatively low – this also reduced the fear of infection.
According to the government, almost 90 percent of the entire population has now been vaccinated, but studies have shown that the Chinese inactivated vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac are less effective against the omicron variant. For this reason, patient advocates in Hong Kong called for vaccinating elderly residents with the German Biontech vaccine to better protect them.
There are signs of a minimal turnaround
Is the government sticking to the measures despite the displeasure of the population? City health official Wu Qianyu said at a news conference on Sunday the regulations would be “not relaxed at all”.
Now, however, there are signs of a – at least minimal – turnaround. As of today, Monday, there will be easing in Shanghai: the authorities said that residents in the districts with the lowest number of corona infections will gradually be allowed to leave their homes again. The details initially remained vague.
According to government representative Gu Honghui, the districts are to be divided into three different levels according to the number of infections. “Differentiated prevention and control measures” would thus reflect the “actual circumstances” on site, he said. In the residential areas where no new cases have occurred in the past 14 days, residents are allowed to go outside again.
Confused residents of the metropolis on Monday tried to find out from their neighborhood committees exactly what the announcement means to them. In a district in the south of the city, which should therefore fall into the lowest category, they were told that they could now go out of their homes once a day to shop.
According to the state news agency Xinhua, residents of residential areas without new cases of infection are “in principle” now allowed to move freely within their district. However, there are “strict restrictions” on meetings. In the case of new infections, it can be sealed off again at any time, said Gu Honghui. So it’s still too early for the population to breathe a sigh of relief.
