Weekend Long Read: The Free Market Isn’t to Blame for Shanghai’s Lockdown Woes

Shanghai’s lackluster handling of the latest bout of Covid-19 in the first quarter of this year was met by harsh public backlash, which some blame on the city’s dependence on its formidable private sector that crumbled under controls.

Prior to the recent lockdown, Shanghai’s pandemic response policy was seen as a gleaming model of precision control and prevention, and hailed as causing the least disturbance to residents. No major Covid outbreak occurred in 2021 when the city’s international airports received more than 50% of the country’ inflow of people from abroad.