Shanghai's Lockdown Nightmare Is Finally Ending

China's most populous city, Shanghai, will end a grueling 65-day lockdown at the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, freeing more than 20 million people from their homes for the first time since late March.

Local officials, who had initially reassured the public that a lockdown wouldn't happen, confirmed this week that the city's June 1 target for reopening would be met, much to the relief of the better part of Shanghai's 25 million residents, 22.5 million of whom in so-called low-risk areas will regain their freedom of movement.

China's pursuit of a zero-COVID policy has seen communities across the country sealed off for weeks and their residents tested for the virus on a regular basis. In Shanghai, residents who tested positive were forced into centralized quarantine facilities, while those confined to their apartments struggled without income and lacked access to basic supplies like food and water as well as medical and psychological support.

It sparked demonstrations and viral outbursts from the public, who screamed and sang from their apartment windows in a form of non-violent protest, while others banged pots and pans. Footage routinely deleted from Chinese social media websites also showed physical standoffs with health workers, a manifestation of frustrations for many who had already been under lockdown before Shanghai officially began its citywide closure on March 28.

This month, a number of neighborhood compounds that had been free of COVID for at least 14 days were allowing residents with passes to go on brief walks within a specified area, but much of the city's public infrastructure remained off-limits. On Monday, metal fences surrounding these communities and obstacles blocking parks and side roads were being dismantled, signaling the formal end of the two-month lockdown.

It's by no means an unconditional reopening. Masks will remain mandatory and large gatherings prohibited; restaurants and supermarkets will operate at 75 percent capacity. For specified student groups—those in the final year of middle school and last two years of high school—a return to in-person lessons will be voluntary. All other years, including kindergarten, remain closed.

Purely in terms of its infection rate, Shanghai's harsh measures—overseen by the central government in Beijing—have been effective at tamping down the highly transmissible Omicron variant, which has the potential to break through again. The city's health officials, who were monitoring a peak of more than 20,000 daily cases in April, are now content with infections in the double digits.

However, the lockdown did come with enormous social and economic costs for the world's busiest shipping port. As Shanghai's economy wound down last month, impacting China's growth and supply chains around the globe, it triggered gloomy predictions from the international business community as spooked investors appeared anxious about the unpredictability of the once relatively stable investment environment.

Last week, Shanghai-based economist Xue Yunkai estimated the city's ongoing lockdown had cost 4.07 trillion Chinese yuan ($611.18 billion), nearly as much as Shanghai's total gross industrial output of 4.32 trillion ($648.71 billion) in 2021. The WHO also renewed its call for Beijing to move away from zero COVID, repeating a description of the policy as "unsustainable."

But the end of lockdown in Shanghai doesn't mean the end of zero COVID. Residents who wish to use public transport or enter public venues such as supermarkets or banks must subject themselves to PCR tests every 72 hours. The vast centralized quarantine centers are also set to remain—to quarantine patients and close contacts who return positive for the virus.

In addition to an urgent campaign to vaccinate China's elderly, the Chinese government is also routinizing PCR tests as one of the conditions for exiting lockdown. In Shanghai alone, officials say some 15,000 testing sites have been built, enough to collect 8.5 million samples every day. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of similar pop-up PCR booths currently have the capacity to test more than half a billion people every 24 hours.