Shanghai announced on Thursday that it would detain a district of 2.7 million inhabitants on Saturday to test the entire population there, despite the deconfining of the Chinese metropolis that began a few days ago.
The city last week lifted most of the restrictions on its 25 million residents, who have been confined since early April to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak, the most virrulent since 2020.
The deconfinement is not total: several hundred thousand people remain confined in their residential complexes due to the discovery of positive cases.
The Minhang district in southwest Shanghai will be closed on Saturday morning and its residents will have to take a test PCRannounced local authorities on the social network WeChat.
The closure will be removed after sample collectionthey added, without specifying a date or time or saying what steps to take in case positive cases are discovered.
Under the zero COVID national health approach, all people who test positive are in theory placed in quarantine.
The announcement on Thursday sparked concern among Internet users about a possible general reconfinement of the city.
Is the district lockdown [de Minhang] will it really be deleted after sample collection? question of a user of the social network Weibo.
What happens if there are positive results? Will the lockdown continue? another user asked.
City hall on Thursday denied rumors that the rest of Shanghai would be re -closed.
The incarceration dealt a severe blow to the economy, but the metropolis revived within days. Subways and buses are running again, while the Shanghainese are enjoying the city’s restaurants, bars and parks.
Some residents, however, still remain at home, which sometimes causes tension with authorities.
The Ministry of Health on Thursday reported nine new positive cases the other day in Shanghai.
China’s capital Beijing is slowly approaching normalcy after closing restaurants, bars, gyms and parks last month to quell an epidemic outbreak of smaller magnitude, however, than Shanghai.
The main district of Chaoyang city, however, on Thursday ordered the closure of clubs and bars after several cases were detected, state media said.
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
