Shanghai, A City With The State-Highest Confirmed Cases, Conducts Multiple Measures To Calm Public Rage

As the epidemic situation in Shanghai continues to worsen, yesterday, the authorities rolled out a policy of two-phase lockdown bordered by the Huangpu River to conduct a city-wide nucleic acid screening.

4477 confirmed cases were reported on Shanghai’s first day of lockdown, the city’s highest number in history, which accounted for 80% of the country’s total for that day. Wu Qianyu, a first-class inspector of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, said that yesterday was the first day for screening in Pudong, Punan, and adjacent areas, with a total of 17,000 sample takers working at 6,300 test sites. As of late yesterday, 3,831 positive cases were screened out of more than 8.26 million tests, most from Pudong New District.

However, due to the protracted lockdown and control in partial areas, the public grievance is getting louder, and various discourses adverse to the regime are brewing online. In order to calm down public rage, Shanghai authorities issued a Notification calling on all streets and neighborhood committees to ensure the livelihood of residents during the nucleic acid screening period, including the establishment of service hotlines to provide materials and medicine, as well as the provision of one-on-one assistance by allocating volunteers to some elderly people living alone or those with special needs.