BEIJING (AP) – Shanghai authorities say on Wednesday they will take some serious steps to rebuild China’s largest city after (
BEIJING (AP) – Shanghai authorities say on Wednesday they will take some serious steps to rebuild China’s largest city after the two-month closure of COVID-19, which stifled the national economy and killed millions of people in their homes.
Full bus and subway services will be restored, as well as major rail links with the rest of China, Vice Mayor Zong Ming said on Tuesday at a daily press conference on the city’s outbreak.
Schools will partially open on a voluntary basis for students, and shopping malls, supermarkets, shops and drugstores will continue to open gradually, with no more than 75% of their total capacity. Cinemas and gyms will remain closed.
Officials, who set June 1 as the target date for the resumption of work earlier in May, appear ready to accelerate what has been a gradual easing in recent days. Several shopping malls and markets have reopened, and some residents have been issued passes that allow them to go out for several hours at a time. At least in some chat groups, the cynicism regarding the slow pace and cessation of discoveries changed on Tuesday with unrest over the prospect of free movement around the city for the first time since late March.
On Monday, 29 new cases were recorded in Shanghai, continuing a steady decline from more than 20,000 a day in April. Li Qiang, a senior official with China’s ruling Communist Party in Shanghai, told a meeting Monday that the city has made great strides in fighting the outbreak through continuous fighting.
Success had a price. Authorities have imposed a suffocating citywide closure as part of China’s “zero COVID-19” strategy, which aims to eliminate any outbreak through mass testing and isolation in centralized facilities of all those infected.
Schools will reopen for the last two years of high school and the third year of high school, but students can decide whether to attend them in person. Other classes and kindergarten remain closed.
Beijing, the country’s capital, on Tuesday further eased restrictions in some areas. The city has imposed limited closure measures, but nothing close to the citywide level, in a much smaller outbreak that seems to be declining. On Monday, Beijing recorded 18 new cases.
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