The New Mood.

Shanghai: "The situation is extremely grim."

1. The Covid-19 outbreak in China’s largest metropolis of Shanghai remains “extremely grim” amid an ongoing lockdown confining around 26 million people to their homes, a city official said Tuesday. The director of Shanghai’s working group on epidemic control, Gu Honghui, was quoted by state media as saying that the outbreak in the city was “still running at a high level.” “The situation is extremely grim,” Gu said. China has sent more than 10,000 health workers from around the country to aid the city, including 2,000 from the military, and is mass testing residents, some of whom have been locked down for weeks. Most of eastern Shanghai, which was supposed to reopen last Friday, remained locked down along with the western half of the city. (Source: latimes.com)

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2. Activity in China’s services sector tumbled in March at its fastest pace since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, as lockdowns aimed at smothering outbreaks in major cities kept millions at home and pummeled consumer spending. The data add to signs the world’s second-largest economy will struggle to meet Beijing’s growth goals for the year as authorities wrestle with China’s worst Covid-19 outbreak in two years. Cases have triggered lockdowns in parts of the country as distant as the southern technology hub of Shenzhen and the northeastern industrial province of Jilin. (Source: wsj.com)

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3. A quarter of Africa’s population is facing a food-security crisis driven by severe drought, raging wars and a rise in world food prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned Tuesday. Some 346 million people, from Mauritania in the west to the Horn of Africa in the east, are affected by food insecurity, Dominik Stillhart, the agency’s global operations director, told reporters in Nairobi. “What we don’t want to see is the response that comes too late, and that is why it is so important to draw attention to the situation now,” Mr. Stillhart said. (Source: wsj.com)

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