Following a meeting of Chinese leaders, Shanghai has further strengthened the restrictions imposed on its 25 million inhabitants for more than six weeks.
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Gaël, a Frenchman living in Shanghai for eight years, was ordered to pack his bags on Saturday May 7 in the morning: in his residence of the old city center, all the inhabitants were to be sent to isolation. However, they were tested negative at the COVID-19, but the authorities want to accelerate the exit of the epidemic by isolating ever more inhabitants in the residences affected by cases of COVID-19. When Gaël, advised by the French Consulate, asked for an official document to justify this forced transfer to centers or hotels under Spartan conditions, the manager of his resident committee sent him a video as a threat. We see police in white combination trying to justify the expulsion of Chinese citizens before getting impatient: “Stop asking why! There is no why, it is under the regulations of the country!”
In recent days in Shanghai, strengthening the isolation policy has been accompanied by a rain of new rules: prohibition to receive deliveries for a week, and prohibited outings, even for medical meetings. The residences spared by the COVID-19 for weeks, which had a certain freedom, also find themselves subject to the most drastic measures for seven days. The number of cases drops gradually, while Shanghai begins his seventh week of confinement, with 3,717 cases on Monday May 9, after a point at 27,600 cases in mid-April. But not quickly enough for the authorities.
The zero covid strategy will be maintained
This additional tour of the screw has a clear cause: a meeting on Thursday May 5 of the permanent committee of the political bureau of the Communist Party, which brings together the seven highest Chinese leaders. The committee, largely dominated by President Xi Jinping, has swept any doubt about the strategy adopted for the coming months: zero covid will be maintained, at all costs. “Perseverance is victory,” said the press release published at the end of the meeting, warming a revolutionary slogan. He also calls for “resolutely fighting any speech and any act which deforms, questions or questions [their] policy of prevention of the epidemic”: a clear warning to the party officials who would discuss orders or, at least, would drag feet.
In the process, the Shanghai municipal committee held a long study session of the “spirit of the meeting of the permanent committee”. Shanghai’s management is on ardent coals since the city faces the largest home in Covid-19 that China has known. During previous households in Wuhan, the Northeast, or in Xi’an, local leaders were systematically sanctioned. Friday and Saturday, many districts of Shanghai received instructions detailing even more strict rules.
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