![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.capitalfm.co.ke\/news\/files\/2022\/05\/232776eef8ce0a12de692c1d2f77d642018cb110.jpg\")
Some Shanghai residents told AFP they were taken to quarantine sites in a neighbouring province even though they had tested negative for the coronavirus \u00a9 AFP \/ Hector RETAMAL<\/b><\/p><\/div>\n
City authorities have imposed a three-tiered system of “freedoms”, although stringent local enforcement appeared to still restrict the majority of residents to within compounds or neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n
China’s relentless pursuit of a zero-Covid policy has left many Shanghai residents chafing under the tight curbs.<\/p>\n
The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Officials in the economic hub are likely under more pressure than elsewhere to achieve “zero-Covid at the community level” — meaning no transmission outside quarantine centres — according to Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n
“When they face strong pressure from above to achieve zero-Covid targets, these heavy-handed, excessive measures become more likely.”<\/p>\n
“Moving negative people could be considered a pre-emptive strategy, with the expectation that more positive cases may be found if they stay there,” Huang added.<\/p>\n
Chinese officials are routinely sacked after virus outbreaks for perceived failures in Covid control.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of close contacts of virus cases have been quarantined in neighbouring provinces, according to official news agency Xinhua.<\/p>\n
But there has been no mention in official media of the relocation of negative cases.<\/p>\n
Shanghai authorities have faced wide criticism after they initially announced phased four-day lockdowns in different parts of the city that were not then lifted.<\/p>\n
Tall metal barriers were erected around some locked-down compounds in recent days, as part of measures described as a “hard lockdown”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shanghai, May 2 – In the middle of the night, Shanghai resident Lucy said she and her neighbours were forced into buses and taken hundreds of kilometres away from the locked-down Chinese metropolis to a makeshift quarantine centre. Most of Shanghai’s 25 million residents have been confined to their homes for weeks as the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":675845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2242,7449,6488,10124],"coauthors":[141],"class_list":["post-675847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-china","tag-coronavirus-pandemic","tag-shanghai","tag-yanzhong-huang"],"yoast_head":"\n