Residents of China’s largest city and financial hub, Shanghai, emerged from a draconian COVID-19 lockdown Wednesday that kept them forcibly locked inside their homes for two months.
Many of the Chinese city’s 25 million residents filled buses and commuter trains on the system’s first full day of service as they returned to offices or flocked to stores for the first time since the lockdown was imposed in early April, with others out jogging or walking to take in some fresh air. But China’s largest city is still under tight restrictions, with shopping malls and other outlets reopening only gradually at no more than 75% capacity, while movie theaters and gyms remain closed.
Shanghai imposed the strict lockdown to contain a raging outbreak of new COVID-19 cases largely driven by the highly contagious omicron variant. The lockdown led to angry complaints of a lack of fresh food and medicines, as well as an unusual public protest caught on video showing residents screaming in unison from the open windows of their high-rise apartment that quickly went viral on social media.
The lockdown also brought normal economic activity to a grinding halt in the financial hub as Beijing doubled down on its strict “zero-COVID” policy.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters
