After Shanghai’s high Covid-19 recovery rate officials now focus on getting manufacturing hub back on its feet

Shanghai’s high recovery rate of 50 per cent against the coronavirus epidemic has given the city’s top officials confidence to resume manufacturing and business activities in mainland China’s most developed metropolis at full tilt.

Professor Lu Hongzhou, an epidemiologist at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre where the city’s Covid-19 patients are hospitalised, attributed the high success rate to local medical specialists’ strenuous efforts, advanced facilities, as well as early diagnosis and prompt treatment.

“We mobilised the best doctors from a variety of fields to treat patients and the efforts paid off in rescuing critical patients,” he told reporters at a press conference on Monday. “Our centre acts as a fortress for Shanghai to fight against the [Covid-19] epidemic.”

The hospital in the southwest suburb of Jinshan is getting an additional infectious disease facility with another 200 beds to tackle such emergencies in the future. “We are planning ahead to better prepare in its fight against new viruses,” Lu said.

As of Monday, 161 of the 332 Covid-19 patients in Shanghai had fully recovered and been released from hospitals, and seen only one death, making the city a front runner in the fight against the deadly outbreak. Nationwide, 12,552 patients have been treated and sent home for a cure rate of 17.3 per cent, while the death toll on the mainland stood at 1,868.

The high recovery rate matters because China’s premier financial hub of 25 million residents is being lauded as a role model for how other provincial and municipal authorities should tackle the worst public health crisis to hit the nation in two decades. Ying Yong, who on Thursday was parachuted to take over as Hubei’s Commissar at the epicentre of the epidermic, was credited with attracting Tesla to set up its first overseas assembly in Shanghai while he was the city's top Communist Party cadre.