Shanghai set for new lockdown, Beijing to shut down entertainment

Beijing, Jun 9 (EFE).- Authorities on Thursday were set to impose fresh coronavirus restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing as part of China’s strict “zero Covid” policy.

Tough lockdown measures – particularly in Shanghai, where most of the city’s 25 million residents were barred from leaving their homes for two months – were only eased last week.

As part of Beijing’s draconian approach to curbing Covid-19, all positive coronavirus cases are isolated, while close contacts – which can include their whole apartment block or residential community – must quarantine.

Officials in Minhang, a district in Shanghai that is home to around 2.5 million people, said Thursday in a statement posted on social media platform Weibo that residents would be confined to their homes for a round of mass testing.

In the capital Beijing, entertainment venues and internet cafes in the district of Chaoyang, the city’s most populous, were ordered to close from 2pm on Thursday, the official China Daily reported.

China, which has attempted to stamp out the virus through a strict “zero tolerance” policy, has over the last three months struggled with a wave of outbreaks fueled by the omicron variant that has led to record numbers of infections not seen since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. EFE

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