Shanghai official admits to failures in virus handling as lockdown continues
Shanghai’s deputy mayor admits to shortcomings in the city’s handling of its Covid outbreak as a record 23,600 new cases were reported on Saturday
A top Shanghai official on Saturday admitted to shortcomings in the handling of the raging Covid-19 outbreak in the city as it logged a record 23,600 new cases amid a lockdown that’s straining health care and civic infrastructure.
Addressing a press conference, deputy mayor Zong Ming said the handling of the outbreak needed to improve though she praised the work of frontline medics and the support of the public.
“We feel the same way about the problems everyone has raised and voiced,” Zong said at the briefing on Saturday.
“A lot of our work has not been enough, and there’s still a big gap from everyone’s expectations. We will do our best to improve,” Zong said.
Zong added that the epidemic prevention was “at the most critical moment, and we cannot tolerate the slightest slack”.
“We will continue to have less movement and strict control, so as to block the spread of the epidemic as quickly as possible, and achieve a dynamic social clearing,” she said.
Zong thanked and praised the work of medical personnel, public security officers, and volunteers for their continuous efforts.
Gu Jun, director of the city’s commerce commission, also admitted to problems in distributing food supplies and said distribution centres, supermarkets, and pharmacies should continue operating online as much as possible.
A new round of Covid-19 screenings was ordered on Saturday in Shanghai, a city of around 25 million, which reported 1,015 locally transmitted symptomatic cases for Friday.
Based on the test results, the city will manage different areas according to the risk levels.
Shanghai has built over 100 makeshift hospitals for Covid-19 treatment with over 160,000 beds besides eight designated hospitals with over 8,000 beds.
Elsewhere in the country, provinces and cities like Guangzhou in southern China, are gearing up for outbreaks.
“Guangzhou, capital of south China’s Guangdong province, on Saturday launched citywide anti-Covid efforts and vowed to secure supplies of daily necessities in the face of Covid-19 community transmission risks,” the state-run tabloid, Global Times reported Saturday.
Guangzhou is taking all prevention and control measures including citywide nucleic acid testing to detect infected cases as soon as possible, Chen Bin, deputy director of Guangzhou’s health commission, said during a press conference.
Overall, the Chinese mainland reported 1,334 new locally-transmitted confirmed Covid-19 cases on Friday, down from 1,540 on Thursday, the national health commission (NHC) said.
Of the local confirmed cases reported Friday, 1,015 were in Shanghai, 248 in Jilin, 13 in Zhejiang, and six in Beijing.
The rest were reported in 12 provincial-level regions.
Friday also saw 23,815 new asymptomatic carriers on the Chinese mainland, including 23,737 local ones and 78 imported ones, the NHC said in its daily bulletin.