With COVID-19 case numbers rising in China, residents in Beijing and Shanghai remain in lockdown as part of Xi Jinping's "zero-COVID" policy.
"The results of our Shanghai COVID PCR tests were just published from the test this morning," Jared T. Nelson, a lawyer living in Shanghai tweeted on May 6. "We are negative We are negative again. We are negative again for 40+ consecutive negative tests during this lockdown where we are trapped in our homes, not allowed to leave…"
The ongoing Shanghai lockdown has had a negative effect on the country's supply chain and manufacturing.
Beijing and Shangai, China's two largest cities, increased their COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, which crushed any hope that the measures would be lightened as May draws on, a Reuters news report said.
Shanghai residents found the already stringent restrictions extended, and some areas of Beijing were ordered to do nothing outside of activities related to preventing the spread of the virus, the news report said.
"It was like a prison," Coco Wang, a Shanghai resident living under the new, harsher restrictions, told Reuters. "We are not afraid of the virus. We are afraid of this policy."
Concerns over China's lockdown policy are more than just humanitarian, the Reuters report said. China's export growth has slowed to its weakest level in almost two years, reducing the value of the Chinese yuan relative to the U.S. dollar. Closed factories and a quarantined workforce have crippled manufacturing supply and demand and resulted in decreased growth forecasts for the near future.
The Globe Banner recently reported on supply chain concerns that have grown due to the Chinese restrictions.
“Many enterprises reported increasing difficulties in logistics and transportation, as well as difficulties in the supply of major raw materials, poor sales of finished products, overstocking, and so on,” Zhao Qinghe, a senior official of China's National Bureau of Statistics, told the Banner. He noted also that because of these circumstances, businesses throughout the supply chain have been severely affected.