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Shanghai (AFP) – Shanghai announced three deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, April 18, the first fatalities since the Chinese megacity began a prolonged lockdown that has sparked anger and protests.
“All three people deteriorated after admission to hospital and died after efforts to revive them proved ineffective,” the council said on social media.
The dead people are two women aged 89 and 91 and a 91-year-old man, according to the local government, which indicated that they all had health problems such as coronary heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Shanghai, China’s largest city with 25 million people, has been in lockdown since March with the country’s worst Covid-19 outbreak since the start of the pandemic.
The business center reported 22,248 new local cases on Monday, of which 2,417 were symptomatic, according to the municipal health commission.
The level of infections is relatively low compared to other outbreaks in the world, but it reflects a trend in recent weeks, with tens of thousands of cases a day, most of them asymptomatic.
Even so, the authorities insisted on maintaining the policy of zero tolerance for the virus, with restrictions on the movement and isolation of infected people, even if they do not present symptoms.
Low vaccination and no forecast to relax restrictions
The residents of Shanghai, one of the richest and most cosmopolitan cities in China, have complained about the restrictions due to the lack of food, the inadequate conditions in the quarantine centers and the drastic application of the measures.
Social media users criticized the authorities for filming the death of a dog at the hands of health workers because its owners tested positive for the coronavirus, and for the policy of separating infected children from their parents, although this measure has been eased. .
In a sign of the discontent, videos posted online showed some villagers arguing with police in protective suits who ordered them to give up their homes to infected patients.
Other videos have shown the desperation of the villagers, some of whom crossed the barricades to demand food.
However, Shanghai does not plan to ease the restrictions.
The Ministry of Health points out that relaxing restrictions too much could overwhelm the health system and cause millions of deaths. Also because the vaccination rate remains low among the elderly: just over half of those over 80 have received a booster dose.
sensitive year
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using the low death toll as a political argument, showing that it puts the lives of its people above economic considerations, in contrast to Western democracies where the coronavirus has claimed countless lives.
But political considerations are also at play, according to many experts. The CCP will hold a major meeting in late 2022 in which Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to win a third five-year term as head of the party.
“This is a sensitive and crucial year for the regime,” says Lynette Ong, professor of political science at the University of Toronto (Canada).
Chinese authorities have only reported 4,641 official coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic at the end of 2019, an extremely low number considering that China is the most populous country in the world (1.4 billion).
China, where the coronavirus was first detected, had reduced infections to a minimum thanks to its zero covid policy with mass testing, travel restrictions and targeted lockdowns.
But it has recently struggled to contain outbreaks in several cities following the appearance of the contagious Omicron variant.
The last time China reported new deaths from Covid-19 was on March 19 when two people died in the northeastern city of Jilin, the first in the country in more than a year.
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