Schools will partially reopen on a voluntary basis, and shopping malls, supermarkets, convenience stores and drug stores will reopen gradually at no more than 75% of their total capacity.

“I’m very happy, extremely happy, all the way, too happy,” she said.

Lu Kexin, a high school senior visiting the Bund for the first time since late March, said she went crazy being trapped at home for so long. “It was quite depressing to be locked at home and see the whole Shanghai under lockdown.” “At the beginning of the lockdown I felt hard in my heart because I didn’t know what to do and it was difficult to buy food at the beginning,” she said. Shanghai authorities say they will take major steps Wednesday toward reopening China's largest city after a two-month COVID-19 lockdown that has set back the national economy and largely confined millions of people to their homes.Ĭao Yue, who works in the hard-hit travel industry, said it was a joy to see “many happy people around me on the street.”Ĭao said the past two months under lockdown was a depressing experience. Residents cheer as they pose photos as it nears midnight on the eve of the lifting of a COVID-19 lockdown, May 31, 2022, in Shanghai. That didn’t deter people from gathering outside to eat and drink under the watch of police deployed to discourage large crowds from forming. The government says all restrictions will be gradually lifted, but local neighborhood committees still wield considerable power to implement sometimes conflicting and arbitrary policies. Still, more than half a million people in the city of 25 million are still under lockdown or in designated control zones because virus cases are still being detected. The lockdown set back the national economy and largely confined millions to their homes, while its ruthless and often chaotic enforcement prompted protests in person and online that are seldom seen under China’s strict authoritarian government.įull bus and subway service will be restored Wednesday, as will basic rail connections with the rest of China. Shanghai residents visited the waterfront Bund and ate and drank along streets patrolled by police early Wednesday as people in China’s largest city savored the easing of its severe two-month COVID-19 lockdown.

People coming back to life