SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, VCG via Getty ImagesIt’s taken more than a month, but Shanghai’s leaders now think the city’s Covid outbreak is almost contained. So they’ve ordered a mass clean-up – an army of people disinfecting thousands of compounds and residential areas aiming to eradicate the virus. Then China’s financial capital will open up, but it will be gradual, tentative, cautious.The brutal “war” against Omicron has left a scarred city. People as old as 100 were among those who tested positive and were taken to quarantine centres. There were very few exceptions. In the five weeks that I’ve been locked down, unable to go any further than the gate at the end of my compound, it’s Shanghai’s most vulnerable who’ve suffered the most. One man called Wu who was quarantined documented what he saw on Douyin (known as TikTok outside of China). “We don’t have enough medical resources now, they can’t be treated in hospital like in normal days,” he said. At one point he saw an 85-year-old woman who fell ill. She was saved by emergency medics.China’s elderly suffer in Covid quarantine centresShanghai patient taken away in body bag while aliveWe’ve heard harrowing stories from the family of a 90-year-old woman taken in after she tested positive. Officials insisted she be sent to a government facility. Her family, who asked not to be identified, were worried about her eating and how she’d go to the toilet on her own. Her husband, also in his 90s and bedridden, was able to stay at home.Others have told of us about more dire circumstances for patients in a hospital that was hit by this wave of Covid-19 early on. Last month we reported on patients at Donghai Elderly Care Hospital who died after testing positive. This was while the official death toll in the city was zero. One man told us his 90-year-old sister had died, sharing a room with five others. He has contacted us again and told us all the others in her room have since died.The BBC has seen a text exchange with a care giver from the hospital who said “a lot died in the intensive care wards”, but they added they were “not sure about exact numbers”.Image source, VCG via Getty ImagesThe official death toll is now 491, as of 4 May. Almost all of those were elderly and unvaccinated. Only 38% of the over-60s in Shanghai have the full protection of three vaccine jabs. Some districts have just announced fresh efforts to increase that, a month into lockdown.At the very top, China’s leaders remain adamant that chasing “zero Covid” is the right thing. President Xi Jinping, the man in charge of China’s ruling Communist Party, has made it clear there is no change. He believes “persistence is victory”. This is now a test of China’s way of dealing with the coronavirus. It’s a test of his credibility too.The language of the battle has evolved, though. Whereas lockdown became known as “static management” in state-controlled media, the government has been forced to shift its goal to what it calls “societal zero”; that is, no positive cases emerging outside controlled quarantine areas. That goal is close. The reported case numbers are falling, but it’s a way off “zero”.Image source, EPAThe enforcement methods have been harsh at times. Some people were barricaded into their homes, or forced out of them. Communities, including mine, have been fenced off. Green barriers have appeared all over the city, erected across roads.There is little room for dissent or to focus on shortcomings. One man was questioned by police for simply showing his shopping to someone recording on a phone. The slab of pork, as a stamp proved, had been donated from a neighbouring province. His transgression appeared to be highlighting the food supply problems. The hard life of a homeless Shanghai deliverymanWhy Shanghai has changed its approach to CovidA small-scale protest in parts of Shanghai a few days ago was quickly condemned. People were seen banging pots in parts of the city. Officials said it had been influenced by “foreign forces”.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.One part of China has changed tack, though. Hong Kong had tough restrictions. It was all but closed off from the rest of the world for a time, but there was no lockdown. Then it was over-run by Omicron. Hong Kong recorded the highest average weekly death rate in the world, at the time.Professor Ben Cowling from the University of Hong Kong told me he estimates over 60% of the population were infected, and it now has herd immunity to the BA2 variant. He said he is worried about another wave of new variants, but, given the spread the city has just been through, he said, “I don’t think it will have a high impact”.”My concern in Shanghai would be how long can this go on?” Prof Cowling said. The number of reported positive cases is “going to drop down slowly”, he thinks “but the whole thing could happen again in a month, or two months, or three months if there’s another outbreak of Omicron”.Image source, NurPhoto via Getty ImagesDebate about herd immunity and the idea of “living with it” on the mainland has been shut down in public. The focus is on what President Xi has called winning a “final battle”. It’s a battle against a virus that China officially declared victory over in the summer of 2020. But it’s one that Xi is determined to win as he heads for a crucial meeting of the Party’s Congress in October and what he hopes will be a third term in power, the first leader to do so in a generation.China’s capital Beijing is now trying to stop the virus spreading, repeatedly testing most of its residents. Defending the seat of power is crucial for the Communist Party’s reputation. Most of China has been virus-free for almost two years, and that remains the case.But as Omicron threatens there’s renewed anxiety. An already fragile economy – still so crucial for global growth and supply chains – is under growing pressure.Lockdowns in the name of “zero Covid” could be harder and harder to justify.More on this storyChina’s elderly suffer in Covid quarantine centresThe hard life of a homeless Shanghai deliverymanElderly deaths contradict Shanghai Covid figuresShanghai hospital struggles with Covid infections

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.The BBC has been told of fresh efforts to relocate entire communities in areas of Shanghai as Chinese authorities enforce extreme measures to try to stop a new wave of Covid.An official notice from local Communist Party officials in an area in the north of the city details orders to transfer residents to quarantine facilities more than 100 miles (160km) away.The plan is to move people from their homes in Pingwang to the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, where they will stay for at least a week. Young children, the elderly and those with disabilities could be excluded, according to the notice.It said only those who tested negative could go – it’s not clear why people with negative tests are being moved. Officials are under great pressure to cut the risk of transmission and reduce cases to zero. It comes just days after authorities moved people out of their homes and evacuated much of the population in another area of Shanghai. At least 1,000 people were forced to leave the small town of Beicai and move to temporary accommodation so officials could disinfect the area on the outskirts of the Pudong area in the east of the city.An official notice issued to residents told them to pack their belongings and leave their wardrobe doors open. They were also told to leave open the front door of their home. Images on social media of people queuing with packed suitcases at night-time showed the scale of the operation. The notice from the town’s Epidemic Prevention Office also included this order: “You cannot bring your pets with you during this evacuation, but we will arrange for them to be taken care of.”Image source, Getty ImagesIt’s a renewed sign of the extreme lengths to which China is willing to go to stop the spread of Covid in Shanghai, which has recorded about 400,000 cases during this outbreak. Most of the city’s 25 million population remain under a strict lockdown which is now in its fourth week.This week officials in the city have recorded 17 people who died after contracting Covid. Nearly all were elderly, unvaccinated residents with underlying health problems.Shanghai’s U-turn on its Covid approachOmicron vs Zero-Covid: How long can China hold on?Why China is locking down its citiesVideo has emerged on social media showing health workers in full PPE walking through Beicai spreading lime powder in the streets and pavements to try to kill any remaining remnants of the virus. Local government officials had earlier denied claims that up to 8,000 people there had tested positive, dismissing it as “false information”.Residents were reportedly moved to several quarantine centres or quarantine hotels. One 33-year-old woman, who was sent to a school that had been requisitioned, posted on social media: “I had enough, just arrived last night but I already want to go back home!!!”Image source, Getty ImagesOthers said the conditions in the temporary hospitals they’d been moved to were an improvement. One domestic worker who is in her 40s said she was among 100 people taken to a facility where she said the food was better. In an earlier post she’d complained about the government supply of “two carrots, one rotten pumpkin and two ears of corn”.The decision to relocate a large number of the town’s population appears to have come immediately after a visit by a very senior Communist Party official. Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who is in charge of day-to-day measures to counter the spread of Covid across China, went to see for herself the extent of the problem the day before the evacuation took place. On the same day – 16 April – she visited a nearby area of Shanghai and instructed officials that there should be “no exemptions”, adding “all infected people should be treated, all close contacts should be isolated”.This video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.The BBC has tried repeatedly to contact officials in the area via the public phone number. The official notice handed out to residents ended by saying: “In the face of the sudden epidemic, the only way we can overcome the difficulties together is to work together and return to normal life as soon as possible.”This is not the first time that authorities in China have moved the entire population of a town to try to stop the virus spreading. Earlier this year around 9,000 residents of two compounds in nearby Hangzhou were moved out en masse to what was described as “centralised isolation sites” after an outbreak of the Omicron variant.In January last year around 20,000 people living in more than a dozen towns in Hebei – a province near Beijing – were transferred in an effort to contain the virus.More on this storyElderly deaths contradict Shanghai Covid figuresShanghai hospital struggles with Covid infectionsWhy Shanghai has changed its approach to Covid