Thousands of medical workers from across China have arrived in Shanghai to help the megacity fight its worst coronavirus outbreak, underscoring the country’s capacity to mobilise resources against Covid-19.
Once held up as a model of a targeted, fine-tuned pandemic response, Shanghai is facing its sternest test yet, with citywide mass testing for its 25 million residents under way. It has reported more than 60,000 infections, mostly asymptomatic, since early last month.
The city government is using all of its human power, including civil servants, state-owned company employees and Communist Party members to facilitate the rapid testing – not to mention the army, whose transport planes have delivered personnel along with testing and safety equipment.
Wu Qianyu, a senior Shanghai health commission official, said on Sunday that medical teams had been sent from around the country to help. According to state media, they came from as far away as Beijing and Tianjin, in the north, and Hainan, in the south.
Some of the estimated 10,000 extra personnel – medical and testing staff, and soldiers – were to be stationed in makeshift hospitals to treat patients, while others would help with mass testing and disinfection.
