Shanghai outbreak trends improving; Xi in Hainan; Economic support

Official data indicate the growth in new cases in Shanghai may be plateauing, and that the vast majority of new infections are now among people already in quarantine/”closed-loop management”. This is why they are working so hard to send all positives, close contacts (密接) and contacts of close contacts (次密接) to centralized facilities, to break the transmission chains as quickly as possible, and contain any outbreak inside the medical facilities and quarantine centers.

If all new cases are inside the “closed-loop management” then they can declare cases have been cleared from society and really start to open back up. I think we are still a ways from that point but at least the trend from the official data is heading in that direction.

An article in Caixin on the trend in Shanghai cases cites a projection from Lanzhou University:

The latest forecast results from Lanzhou University's "Global Forecasting System for New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic" show that this round of the epidemic in Shanghai showed a rapid upward trend during March 1-April 10, and since April 10, the epidemic will show a downward trend and will finally be under control around May 3, with the total number of infected people expected to be about 301,740

兰州大学《新冠肺炎疫情全球预测系统》的最新预测结果显示，上海此轮疫情在3月1日—4月10日期间呈现快速上升趋势，自4月10号后，疫情将呈现下降趋势，最终将于5月3日左右得到控制，预计总感染人数约301740人

Once the “victory” of clearing cases from society is in sight I expect we will see a lot more triumphant propaganda about the battle against Omicron in Shanghai. At that point we may also see the political axe swing for senior members of the Shanghai leadership who have shown remarkable incompetence over the last few weeks.

Xi Jinping has been on an inspection tour in Hainan. The full propaganda package of his visit is not yet released, and it will be interesting to see his visit with the PLA on the island, but so far in the brief snippets that official media have published we see some of these themes:

• food security and indigenous seed development;

• building a maritime strong country;

• environmental protection;

• rural revitalization

• ethnic unity

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Today’s Essential Eight:

1. Shanghai outbreak

2. Tweaks to quarantine length not a sign “Dynamic-zero Covid” going away

3. Economic support

4. Addressing the transport mess

5. Xi Jinping’s Hainan inspection tour

6. US 2021 Human Rights report

7. Singapore PM talks US-China

8. Ukraine

Thanks for reading.