Shanghai’s Covid-19 death toll returns to zero while new cases decline a week before lockdown’s June 1 end

New cases fell for the fourth consecutive day, plunging by 19.4 per cent in the past 24 hours to 387, the lowest since March 19, Wednesday data shows
Cases showing symptoms slid by 24.1 per cent to 44 while the daily death toll fell to zero

Shanghai

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 11:12am, 25 May 2022

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Shanghai’s Covid-19 death toll returned to zero for the second time in six days, while new infections resumed their declining trend, days before the June 1 official end of the two-month lockdown of China’s commercial hub.

New cases fell for the fourth consecutive day, plunging by 19.4 per cent in the past 24 hours to 387, the lowest since March 19, according to data released on Wednesday. Cases showing symptoms slid by 24.1 per cent to 44 while the daily death toll fell to zero.

Wednesday was the first time in seven days that all three tallies turned negative, putting city authorities on track to end the lockdown and standstill orders in place across the city of 25 million residents since April 1. The clamp down in one of China’s largest population centres has pushed businesses to the brink of collapse, and strained global supply chains in everything from clothing and textiles to electronics and vehicles.

One community infection was found in a Jiading district in northern Shanghai in a “low-risk” area that had been infection-free for the past 14 days, underscoring the challenges in keeping the highly transmissible Omicron variant completely at bay. All 13 close contacts of the carrier tested negative, the city’s deputy health commissioner, Zhao Dandan, said on Wednesday.

A woman takes a PCR test on the new mobile testing booth made on the cargo motorcycle, amid the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai on 23 May 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE

“Overall, the situation [in curbing the pandemic] is improving, based on the falling infection numbers,” said Zhang Chaoyue, an analyst with Northeast Securities. “One infection in communities will not stop Shanghai from easing the virus control measures.”

Total deaths since the coronavirus outbreak started on March 1 stood at 586, or 0.09 per cent of the 625,800 people infected in Shanghai.

Shanghai’s elevated highways stood nearly empty during the citywide lockdown on May 24, 2022. Photo: Bloomberg

City authorities announced on Tuesday that 27 big projects involving tollways and production bases had been given the green light to restart construction, which included a 2.8 billion yuan (US$420 million) smart power systems plant by Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Tesla’s largest battery supplier in China, in Lingang free-trade zone.

The total number of mega projects allowed to resume construction in the city rose to 51. These included a data centre by this newspaper’s owner, Alibaba Group Holding, in Jinshan district and Huawei Technologies’ research and development base in Qingpu district.

Shanghaiplans to relax a citywide lockdown on June 1 in a phased plan to gradually return businesses and life to normality by later next month.

‘Just in time’ morphs into ‘just in case’ as Covid-19 cuts supply chains

The city, a gateway for foreign businesses and capital to the mainland, is set to miss an economic growth target of 5.5 per cent for 2022, due to the lockdown that began on April 1, which has caused huge losses in industrial production and consumer spending.

Last month, Shanghai’s industrial output plunged 61.6 per cent from a year ago to 136.4 billion yuan, the local statistics bureau said on Friday. Consumer spending was valued at 71.7 billion yuan, down 46.3 per cent year on year.

Huangpu district, home to Shanghai’s busiest shopping streets like Nanjing Road and Huaihai Road, announced on Wednesday morning that it would conduct three rounds of mass testing on all 630,000 residents through Friday, aiming to entirely contain the pandemic.

Some residents in Pudong who were allowed to venture out to go shopping on Wednesday said retailers had not come prepared to serve them. In Nanmatou subdistrict, people had to queue for two hours before entering a Sam’s Club store due to social distancing rules.

Shopping centres and supermarkets that are operating currently can use a maximum 50 per cent of their normal capacity to serve customers until June 1.

“I feel scared of going shopping now,” said Chen Qun, 57, a shopper who visited the US members-only bulk retail store. “This is not the right way to resume retail. Chaotic scenes at some hypermarkets in densely populated subdistricts can be expected on June 1, when thousands of shoppers flock to the store to buy long-coveted items.”