Shanghai shuts schools as China's largest city struggles to curb COVID cases

The rising numbers of new COVID cases have put China at a complete standstill. While the Communist Party is still trying to curb the anti-lockdown protests that had engulfed the country, the new COVID-19 cases in China are at an all-time high as China relaxes its COVID-19 lockdown measures.

Amidst all the chaos on Saturday, Shanghai, the largest city in China has ordered most of its schools to go online. The Shanghai education bureau announced that the students will now be attending classes online while the Nursery and Childcare centres will remain closed. 

On Saturday, the Shanghai education bureau announced that starting from December 19, “all primary and secondary schools” will go to online mode of teaching. Although the education bureau made exceptions for “third grade of junior high school and the third grade of senior high school”.

The Bureau made it clear that the exempted students can either go and attend a school or can “voluntarily apply for home studies”. The statement also asserted that the “students and young children” who have “difficulties” in-home care can apply to go to schools or kindergarten. 

Medical and educational infra under strain

The BBC on Saturday reported that some schools in China’s largest city had stopped operating offline after numerous teachers and staff fell sick to the deadly virus. BBC also reported that while the Xi Jinping regime has added 230,000 hospital beds in Shanghai, the city’s medical infrastructure is under a massive strain amidst the growing numbers. While some Chinese netizens praised the move, others questioned the efficacy of the online mode of training. 

Following the massive anti-lockdown protests that erupted in multiple Chinese cities, the Xi Jinping administration decided to reverse the stringent zero-covid policy measures and relaxed some of the curbs that were suffocating the people of China.

However, the plan to take a U-turn backfired on the Communist party as the rise in the number of new cases is putting great strains on China’s health infrastructure. Earlier this week, it was reported that the pharmacy shelves in Beijing are completely dried out after the people of China started stockpiling medical supplies, amidst the surge in COVID-19 cases.