Slight easing in Shanghai’s Covid-19 child separation rules, sources say

Hospital executives say a small number of Covid-negative parents allowed to be with their young children in quarantine facilities

The city’s hardline policy on barring the parents has come in for harsh criticism

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Footage emerged on the weekend of young children isolated in state-run wards at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre. Photo: Twitter

Published: 9:45pm, 5 Apr 2022Updated: 11:41pm, 11 Apr 2022

Shanghai has eased a previously hardline rule on separating Covid-positive children from their parents, allowing some families who meet strict requirements to stay together at a temporary hospital.

A small number of parents who test negative for the coronavirus will be allowed to accompany their Covid-positive children up to seven years old at a temporary hospital, or fangcang, at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre, according to two senior executives at top public hospitals in the city.

The easing came just one day after Shanghai announced that all Covid-19 patients, from babies to the elderly, had to be isolated in accordance with the mainland’s antivirus laws and regulations.

On Monday, Wu Qianyu, a senior official with Shanghai’s health commission, said Covid-19 positive children – even if they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms – must be isolated from anyone who tested negative.

Only Covid-positive parents were permitted to accompany their young children into the fangcang, Wu said.

Footage of children in state-run wards at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre was widely shared online. Photo: Twitter

State news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday that 1,000 beds at the expo centre facility had been set aside for children younger than seven, and 177 children had been admitted with their parents. It did not say how many of the parents had tested negative.

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