Shanghai’s Local Authorities Hesitate to Lift Lockdowns as Ordered, Concerned Over Blame for Inevitable Next Outbreak

Shanghai’s Local Authorities Hesitate to Lift Lockdowns as Ordered, Concerned Over Blame for Inevitable Next Outbreak
A worker looks past a fence in a compound during a COVID-19 lockdown in the Jing'an district of Shanghai on May 25, 2022. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
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Shanghai, China’s economic and commercial hub with a population of over 24 million, has been in a hard lockdown for the past two months, which has only just been lifted by the municipal government. Production activities were halted, businesses shut down, and residents were barred from leaving their homes.

Residents have decried the absolute and heavily enforced restrictions, some unnecessary, imposed by their communities, while government staffers from Shanghai’s many local community committees deferred residents’ complaints by saying they were just following “orders from above”—referring to the municipal and central government authorities.