Shanghai stays open as China inches from strategy of zero Covid as residents’ frustration mounts over rolling lockdowns

China inched away from its controversial zero-Covid strategy yesterday after signalling Shanghai would not go into full lockdown despite a rising number of cases.

Civic leaders said the city, home to 24 million people and China’s financial hub, was too important to the country’s economy to shut down.

Until now, a single case had prompted cities to be closed and tight lockdown restrictions imposed immediately. However, residents are voicing increasing frustration at the restrictions while leaders are worried about the economic impact.

It was announced yesterday Shanghai would only face 48-hour lockdowns of individual areas amid a spike in infection. Wu Fan, a medical expert with the city’s pandemic task force, said: “If Shanghai, this city of ours, came to a complete halt, there would be many international cargo ships floating in the East China Sea. This would impact the entire national economy and the global economy.”

Whether the ­decision over Shanghai will be followed elsewhere in China remains to be seen.

Shenyang, a thriving industrial city with a population of more than eight million was abruptly shut down overnight last week as the country recorded fewer than 5,000 cases nationally.

Shenyang was the ­second Chinese city to be placed under the tightest restrictions this month under the ­contentious zero-Covid policy. The aim was to achieve so-called dynamic zero – essentially no Covid cases – but more infectious variants, first Delta, then Omicron, made the strategy increasingly difficult, demanding stringent, unpopular restrictions.

The Shanghai decision appears to be the first concession that dynamic zero is no longer achievable. However, there will be consequences because only about half of over-80s in China are double-vaccinated.

Experts around the world had questioned the viability and impact of pursuing zero-Covid. Professor Linda Bauld, a Scottish Government pandemic adviser, said: “A zero-Covid strategy is not sustainable with a highly transmissible variant. Most countries are abandoning this approach. It’s very difficult to completely remove it from society and expensive because all the testing and case finding takes a lot of resource.

“There are two things we’re ­concerned about when it comes to China’s policy. The first is how long they will continue with this (zero-Covid) strategy because we’re very dependent on China for manufacturing, and supply chains have been disrupted. They’re locking down cities but we need stability.

“The second concern is they have lower uptake of vaccines in some age groups so they need to expand the vaccine programme.

“They could repeat-vaccinate their way out of it. They’re never going to be able to stop ­transmission because we don’t have a sterilising vaccine. No country in the world can stop transmission now but they can reduce mortality.

“But there are also questions about how effective China’s vaccines are compared to others that are available, which is also a concern.”

Last weekend China reported the country’s first two Covid deaths in more than a year and there were concerns a failure to contain the outbreak would result in thousands more. So residents in Shenyang were not permitted to leave their homes without a 48-hour negative test result and were under what authorities have called closed management.

Similarly, in Changchun city, ­residents were ordered to stay indoors when just one person tested positive. Liu Li, a 42-year-old Chinese magazine worker who lives in the city with her elderly mother, has maintained a store of basic food and medicine since the pandemic began in preparation for sudden lockdowns. She said: “I live a normal life. I work when there are tasks for me. If there aren’t any, I talk to my mother, watch TV, or play with my cat.”

However, her mother, a cancer patient, is unvaccinated, like so many others in China.

One public health expert said the zero-Covid policy led to ­complacency in some because the risk of infection had been so low.

Professor Chi Chun-huei, ­director of the centre for global health at Oregon University, told The Guardian: “When there was an extended period without any domestic outbreak, the risk of infection was close to zero. When people in China assess the benefit versus risks of Covid vaccination, the perceived benefit is nearly zero, while the perceived risks (of side effects and complications) are relatively high.”

Chinese state media recently revealed 52 million over-60s and 17 million over-80s had not even had a first dose of vaccine.

Concern about uptake was thought to have been behind President Xi Jinping’s decision to double down on zero-Covid at last week’s meeting of the politburo standing committee.

He demanded China strive for the maximum prevention and control at the least cost, and minimise the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development.

However there were ­concessions, with China’s National Health Commission announcing it was changing its rules so that mild cases would be isolated in centralised locations, rather than admit every patient to hospitals – even if they were asymptomatic. The criteria for a patient to be ­discharged from quarantine has also been lowered in another ­apparent admission that zero-Covid is not sustainable.

An increasing number of­ ­epidemiologists around the world agree that we have to live with Covid but the elimination policy did bring some success prior to the emergence of more infectious variants.

Deaths were lower while bars, ­restaurants, cultural and sporting activities, schools and universities opened as normal. Distancing measures were virtually non-existent.

China even saw positive GDP growth in 2020, while other large economies floundered.

Top Chinese epidemiologist Zhang Wenhong suggested last year that China would eventually need to co-exist with the virus. And last week he said China should eventually move towards a ­sustainable coping strategy.

In a social media post, Dr Zhang said: “With this virus, alleviating fear is the first step we must take.

“Omicron has become so mild, in countries that have achieved widespread vaccination and natural infection rates, it may be less deadly than even the flu.”