Shanghai at 'crucial stage' to bring down COVID-19 cases to zero

Shanghai [China], April 20 (ANI): As the COVID-19 cases continue to surge in China's economic hub Shanghai, the city is at a crucial stage to bring community transmission down to zero, local media reported.
Shanghai on Tuesday reported 2,494 cases and 16,407 local asymptomatic infections, Xinhua reported.
Several experts have argued that China's zero-COVID policy should have retreated. After the failure of stringent COVID measures in the country, media reports suggest this policy is now facing more pushback from local residents and businesses in Shanghai.
Defending the zero-COVID policy, top Chinese officials and senior epidemiologists refuted the claims, pointing out major misunderstandings about the country's zero-COVID policy.
"For example, dynamic zero-COVID does not mean having no infections or strict citywide lockdowns. Unlike some foreign enterprises and analysts who claimed that the policy would heavily affect economic growth, the policy has provided maximum protection to economic growth in the past two years," Global Times reported citing Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as saying on Monday.
Despite following a 'Zero Covid Policy', Covid cases continue to rise in China leading to loss of livelihoods, extended lockdowns, huge economic losses and ascending levels of anxiety among the citizens of the country.
The financial capital of China and a city of more than 26 million residents, Shanghai has been in lockdown for the last many weeks due to China's worst outbreak of Covid since the beginning of the pandemic in 2019 in Wuhan province.
Across China, the administration is locking down their residents, supply lines are rupturing, and officials are scrambling to secure the movement of basic goods, with its largest-ever recorded outbreak of COVID-19 threatening to spiral into a national crisis of the government's own making.
It is estimated that "23 Chinese cities have implemented either full or partial lockdowns" and notably, these cities contribute 22 per cent of China's GDP. Big factories belonging to Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers are shut amid lockdown and the ports are clogged with slow loading and unloading of freight affecting global trade.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government has refused to review its policy as President Xi Jinping, the architect of the Zero COVID program claims he can minimize the losses but the worsening situation in Shanghai suggests things getting out of his control. (ANI)