BEIJING (AP) — China’s largest city, Shanghai, ordered a mass Friday for 1. 3 million citizens of its central district of Yangpu and confined them to their homes at least until the effects are known.
The request echoes measures ordered over the summer that led to a two-month citywide lockdown of 25 million people that devastated the local economy, led to food shortages and rare clashes between citizens and authorities.
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At the beginning of the blockade, the government said it would last a few days, but then extended the deadline.
China has shown no sign of backing down from its hardline “zero COVID” policy since a congress of the main ruling Communist Party concluded this week by granting authoritarian leader Xi Jinping a third five-year term in office and has fulfilled the ranks with his loyalists.
Strict measures have been imposed across the country, from Shanghai in the east to Tibet in the west, where there have also been protests against the lockdown.
Cellphone footage smuggled out of the domain showed crowds of Tibetan Indians and Chinese Han immigrants crowding the streets of Lhasa to protest a blockade that lasted up to 74 days. The footage was reportedly filmed on Wednesday night, but there are no signs of violence.
Lhasa has been under heavy surveillance since bloody anti-government protests erupted in the city in 2008 before spreading to Tibetan areas.
Despite public anger, the former chairman of the Shanghai Communist Party Committee, the most level-headed official in the city who was ultimately to blame for the lockdown measures, was given a seat for the time being on the party’s omnipotent Politburo Standing Committee, an indication of the elevation of Xi’s political allegiance. above those that he can attract public through a competent administration.
Li Qiang, who had been Xi’s virtual staff leader when he ruled eastern Zhejiang province, replaced through Beijing Mayor Chen Jining, former president of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University and minister of environmental protection.
Chen, 58, studied at Brunel University London and worked at Imperial College London, where he earned a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering in 1993.
Many Chinese had hoped for a break from strict COVID-19 protocols, which remain in place even as the rest of the world has opened up. China’s borders remain largely closed and arrivals will have to go through a 10-day quarantine in a designated space.
Despite its prices and the World Health Organization’s calling it unsustainable, China attributes the strategy to keeping the number of cases and deaths at a fraction of those in other countries, though Beijing’s figures have been questioned.
On Friday, China reported 1337 new cases, most of them asymptomatic, and no new deaths. Shanghai reported 11 asymptomatic cases and Tibet showed one case with symptoms and five asymptomatic cases. China says it has recorded a total of 258,660 cases and 5226 deaths. since the pandemic was first detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019.
In a sign that China’s strict measures will remain in place in the long term, Shanghai plans to build a permanent quarantine center on an island in the Huangpu River that divides the financial center, according to business magazine Caixin.
The allocation of 1. 6 billion yuan ($221 million) on Fuxing Island will expand existing services to create 3,009 isolation rooms and 3,250 beds, and is expected to be completed in six months, Caixin said.
Vaccines developed in China are considered useless and have refused to endorse foreign brands such as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and J.
Still, China needs more people to get booster shots before easing restrictions. By mid-October, 90% of Chinese were fully vaccinated and 57% had gained a booster vaccine.
China has relied on locally developed vaccines, most commonly two inactivated vaccines that have been shown to be effective in preventing death and serious illness, but less than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in preventing the spread of the disease.
The Chinese government has also not imposed vaccination: entering a building or other public requires a negative COVID-19 test, not evidence of vaccination. And the country’s strict “zero-COVID” technique means that only a small proportion of the population has been inflamed and built immunity in this way, compared to other positions.
As a result, it is unclear to what extent COVID-19 would spread if quarantine warnings and orders were lifted. Until then, a hodgepodge of nationwide regulations and restrictions of $1. 4 billion will remain in place.
In Tibet’s largest city, Shigatse, the government announced that the “normal order of life and production” would resume from Friday.
Meanwhile, the government on Wednesday ordered another 900,000 people to remain locked up in Wuhan for at least five days. In remote Qinghai province, urban districts in Xining City have been closed since last Friday.
In Beijing, Universal Studios closed its hotels and attractions “to comply with prevention and pandemic measures. “
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