Shanghai Urges Residents To Cooperate With Lockdown

Shanghai authorities on Thursday called on residents to cooperate with strict coronavirus measures imposed to contain the Omicron wave, as they acknowledged “much inconvenience” was brought by prevention and control efforts.

New Covid-19 cases in the city remained high as the financial hub entered the fourth day of a two-stage lockdown, with authorities reporting 355 symptomatic cases, up from 326 the day before.

New asymptomatic infections dropped from more than 5,600 to around 5,300.

In an open letter, the Shanghai municipal government said it recognised people’s sacrifices, as it stood firm in achieving the “dynamic clearance” goal.

“We can't pull off a testing this size and win the pandemic battle without the cooperation from the residents,” it wrote.

“Pandemic prevention and control works have brought much inconvenience to people. We implore the residents to keep cooperating and follow the pandemic control and prevention guidelines. We can only safeguard our home and our city through everyone's efforts.”

Shanghai authorities also pledged to maintain supplies of daily necessities and medical services.

At a daily news conference, Ma Chunlei, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai government, admitted that authorities could have done more in containing the current Omicron wave.

"Our knowledge about the highly contagious Omicron variant has been insufficient, we were inadequate in preparing for a surge in infected patients, part of our control measures have not been targeted, and we were not thoughtful enough to those under lockdown," he said.

“We sincerely accept criticisms, and we are trying our best to improve.”

The financial district of Pudong, located east of the Huangpu River, had been under lockdown since Monday, and such curbs are set to be lifted on Friday.

The rest of the city west of the river, Puxi, will be subject to the same restrictions on the same day, along with a suspension of public transport.

In total, the National Health Commission reported more than 1,800 symptomatic infections on the mainland, with almost three quarters found in northeastern Jilin province.

The nation also had around 6,650 new asymptomatic cases.

Guangdong province confirmed 11 symptomatic cases, six of them were from Shenzhen.