If anyone thought that the COVID-19 pandemic was a thing of the past, they are sadly mistaken.. It seems it is here to stay and is even more unpredictable..
The city of Shanghai, home of the busiest and highest performing container terminal in the world, is waking up on Monday, 28th March 2022, to a mass lockdown in the Pudong New Area, a 1,200 sq km zone on the eastern bank of the Huangpu River..
Authorities announced a mass lock down for four days of mass testing as the Chinese financial hub is trying to contain the spread of a coronavirus outbreak..
Pudong is not alone in this as other key districts of Jinshan, Fengxian, Chongming and part of Minhang will also go into lockdown from Monday the 28th followed by Puxi, on the western bank of Huangpu River..
It is expected that residents of these districts will be confined to their neighborhood and all public and private transport will be barred from traveling..
This ban in the world’s busiest container terminal is giving rise to concerns of supply chain disruptions as it could affect the movement of port workers and the activities at the Yangshan container terminal.. Chinese media is reporting that this could also affect key business areas including the Pudong International Airport, Tesla’s Gigafactory, and SMIC, China’s biggest chip maker adding to the pressures already felt by the chip and semiconductor industries..
It is unknown at this stage whether the ports will be locked down, however, there will certainly be an impact of the lockdown of these districts..
The Shanghai lockdown comes close on the heels of the reopening of Chinese tech hub Shenzhen which lifted its week-long lockdown on Monday of the 21st March although a few parts of its CBD still remains closed..
China has been grappling with its worst outbreak of COVID-19 cases since Wuhan in 2020 and trying to control the local outbreaks of Omicron cases which are mostly asymptomatic..
