Shanghai Further Relaxes Covid Curbs; End of Lockdown in Sight
News 18More Shanghai residents were given the freedom to go out to shop for groceries for the first time in nearly two months on Thursday as authorities set out more plans for exiting the city-wide COVID-19 lockdown more fully. The commercial hub of 25 million recorded no new infections outside quarantined areas for a fifth day in a row, further cementing its “zero COVID” status with each day. Deputy mayor Zhang Wei said economic activity had been recovering with businesses able to operate with workers living on site and that authorities would allow more to resume normal operations from the beginning of June. SIGNS OF LIFE Deputy mayor Zhang said Shanghai’s economy was gradually returning to normal with daily container throughput at its ports at 90% of the levels of a year ago. China’s “zero COVID” policy has placed hundreds of millions of people in dozens of cities under various curbs and disrupted global manufacturing and firms ranging from Apple and Tesla to Starbucks and Walmart.