Shanghai’s ‘grim’ Covid outbreak threatens more global supply chain disruption

theguardian.com:

The Covid-19 outbreak in Shanghai remains “extremely grim” with the ongoing lockdown of China’s financial powerhouse threatening to devastate the country’s economy and cause major disruption to already very stretched global supply chains.

As Shanghai announced another daily record high of 16,766 cases on Wednesday, the director of the city’s working group on epidemic control was quoted by state media as saying that the outbreak in the city was “still running at a high level”.

“The situation is extremely grim,” Gu Honghui said.

Although low by international standards, this is China’s worst outbreak since the virus took hold in Wuhan in January 2020 sparking the global pandemic.

Shanghai’s entire population of 26 million is now locked down and there is growing discontent among people who have been living with restrictions on their movements for weeks as the authorities stick doggedly to their zero-Covid policy of eliminating the disease.

At least 38,000 medical personnel have been deployed to Shanghai from other parts of China, along with 2,000 military personnel, and the city is mass-testing residents.

A separate outbreak continues to rage in the north-eastern province of Jilin and the capital, Beijing, also saw an additional nine cases. Workers shut down an entire shopping centre in the city where a case had been detected.

There are increasing signs that China’s economy is slowing sharply because of the lockdowns. Activity in China’s services sector contracted at the steepest pace in two years in March as the surge in cases restricted mobility and weighed on demand. The closely watched Caixin purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dived to 42.0 in March from 50.2 in February. A drop below the 50-point mark separates growth from