China has announced its largest city shutdown plans since the Covid-19 outbreak began more than two years ago.
While authorities are testing for Covid-19, there will be two phases of closure in the city of Shanghai.
The financially important city has been battling new Covid infections for nearly a month, but the case numbers are still low by international standards.
Authorities have so far resisted closure in the city of 25 million, as it could create economic instability.
But their attitudes seem to have changed as the city’s highest number of cases since the start of the pandemic has been recorded.
Quarantine will be held in two phases. The east side of the city will be in quarantine from today until April 1, and the west side will be in quarantine from April 1-5.
Public transport will not work, companies and factories will either cease their operations or work remotely.
In other quarantines, some regions in China were all closed, but were still allowed to travel within these regions. Shanghai, however, was the largest city to go into closure in terms of population density.
The city is the commercial capital of China and is also the country’s largest city by some calculations.