Covid-19: China Sends Military & Healthcare Professionals To Test Shanghai’s 26 Mn Population

As per an armed forces newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has sent nearly 2,000 medical professionals from across the army, navy, and joint logistics support forces on Sunday.

Workers and volunteers look on in a compound where residents are tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus during the second stage of a pandemic lockdown in Jing' a district in Shanghai on April 4, 2022 | AFP

New Delhi: As China grapples with the worst covid-19 outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic, it has sent thousands of healthcare and military professionals to Shanghai for mass testing of all of its 26 million residents, news agency Reuters reported.

It is the biggest ever public health response by China since the detection of the virus in Wuhan in 2019.

As per an armed forces newspaper, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Sunday sent nearly 2,000 medical professionals from the army, navy, and joint logistics support to Shanghai.

The state media reports have suggested that more than 10,000 healthcare workers from provinces like Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Beijing have arrived in the covid-hit city. 

As per Reuters, this is the biggest ever public health response under the ‘dynamic clearance’ policy of tracing, testing, and quarantining since the outbreak in Wuhan. In late 2019, the PLA had dispatched more than 4,000 healthcare professionals to Wuhan.

In order to get tested, the people of Shanghai had to wake up before dawn for the nucleic acid test. Some showed up in their pajamas as well. Shanghai on Sunday reported 8,581 asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and 425 symptomatic COVID cases.

While the testing and quarantine are for public safety to curb the spread of the virus, the local residents are skeptical of the centre’s policies.

Shanghai was put on a partial lockdown earlier, making half of the town stay inside and the other half allowed to go out, that would reverse in some days, it has now been expanded to a full lockdown.

Meanwhile, residents have complained about being quarantined in unhygienic conditions at central quarantine centers. The healthcare staff is also exhausted and doubts the policymaking. 

On Saturday, Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who was sent to Shanghai by the central government, urged the city to "make resolute and swift moves" to curb the pandemic.