Shanghai officials announced that they will be taking major steps on Wednesday toward reopening China's largest city after a two-month-long COVID-19 lockdown that has caused discontent among residents.
The massive lockdown has set back the national economy and largely confined millions of people inside their homes. After the announcement, a steady stream of residents strolled in the Bund, Shanghai's historic waterfront park, on Tuesday night. They could be seen taking selfies against the bright lights of the Pudong financial district on the other side of the river.
Shanghai Lifts COVID-19 Lockdown
In other areas, people gathered outside to eat and drink under the watch of police officers who have been deployed to discourage large crowds from forming. A high school senior, Lu Kexin, who was visiting the Bund for the first time since late March, said that she went crazy being trapped inside her home for so long.
In a statement, she said that she was very happy to finally be outside and enjoying a breath of fresh air. Vice Mayor Zong Ming announced that full bus and subway services will be restored in the city on Wednesday. This comes as basic rail connections with the rest of China will also be restored, as per the Associated Press.
The city will also partially reopen schools on a voluntary basis and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores, and drug stores will gradually reopen at no more than 75% of their total capacity. However, the reopening of the city will not yet include gyms and cinemas which will remain closed.
Zong said that the epidemic has been effectively controlled thanks to city officials, adding that Shanghai will enter the phase of fully restoring work and life on Wednesday. Officials, who previously set June 1 as the target date for the city's reopening, appear to be ready to accelerate what has been a gradual easing in the last few days.
According to The Atlantic, barriers that fenced neighborhoods in Shanghai were coming down and residents were cautiously venturing into public areas. City officials took strict measures in testing for the virus in the area as residents lined up to take nucleic-acid tests for COVID-19 in front of closed shops in the Pudong district on May 30, 2022.
Effects of the Draconian Policy
Small groups of Shanghai residents gathered in the city's former French Concession neighborhood where they whistled and shouted, "ban lifted" and clinked glasses of champagne as the draconian rules came to an end. Dancing retirees, which are a common evening sight in Chinese cities, came out onto open-air plazas and along the Huangpu River for the first time in weeks.
A spokesperson for the municipal government, Yin Xin, said that Shanghai was embracing a "new start" and noted that the daily briefing on the coronavirus pandemic would no longer continue. The city of 25 million people burst into outrage after the ruthless enforcement of the draconian lockdown.
The procedure left many struggling to get food, emergency healthcare supplies, or other necessities. The lockdown also hampered manufacturing and other industries, disrupting supply chains at home and worldwide, Aljazeera reported.
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