Thread by @donweinland

A few thoughts on the very slow reopening of Shanghai. At central level the politburo SC did not use phrases such as "reconcile zero-covid with growth" in the latest memo. These have been used before. So the message to localities on implementation is to pull out all the stops 1/

We can see this in places like Shanghai's Jinshan district, which had been declared socially covid-free a while ago but has gone back into lockdown after discovering TWO cases. Clearly concern for economic damage is still not a priority here bit.ly/3MUsOWt 2/

Without a strong central message to balance this lockdown with growth (and livelihoods), local level decision-makers have little incentive to open up/ all the downside risks. Hard to blame them for simply keeping people inside. They can do that for as long as they want 3/

This is what has happened where I am. My area met all the requirements to start opening several weeks ago but the jiedao authorities (a subdistrict-level of leaders) would not go forward. They claimed there were new cases for a while (there were none). Only after someone .. 4/

..with some connections threatened to take this to a higher authority were we put on track (several weeks behind) to opening up. There is no guarantee we will get to fully open because the govt framework is being widely ignored. It appears that many people who were recently ..5/

..allowed out have now been locked up again. So on day 36 of the Shanghai lockdown the govt has 1) not issued a timeline for opening, 2) local leaders are more incentivised than ever to ignore economic problems and 3) areas/people recently freed are being locked up again 6/

I'm hopeful some of these things will change soon. The direction of the outbreak/cases is good. The policy direction is getting more risk averse. I fear a situation like Wuhan in 2020 where the city is declared open but vast areas remain locked down for long periods of time /