Shanghai tackles logistics bottlenecks amid virus resurgence

Shanghai is working hard to overcome bottlenecks in logistics and help e-commerce platforms increase production and transport capacity amid strong COVID-19 flare-ups.

The megacity of 25 million people reported 3,590 confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 19,923 local asymptomatic carriers on Friday, the municipal health commission said on Saturday.

"The epidemic rebound in Shanghai has caused severe pressure on online shopping, bearing in mind that many delivery persons are under closed-off management and some large warehouses have been temporarily closed," said Liu Min, deputy director of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce, at a press conference on Saturday.

"Shanghai is going all out to restore transport capacity," Liu said. A total of 42 non-epidemic-hit warehouses of Shanghai's e-commerce platforms have resumed operations so far, with more than 18,000 delivery drivers completing about 1.8 million orders per day.

Also, supermarkets and other offline stores of key suppliers are gradually resuming business. As of Friday, 1,011 non-epidemic-hit stores of major supermarkets had opened. The number of employees had increased by 37 percent compared with the previous period.

To further improve the efficiency of distribution, some supermarkets in the economic hub have launched a variety of supply packages involving necessities such as rice, noodles, vegetables, fruits and toiletries, which will be delivered to local communities through third-party logistics companies after residents report their needs to neighborhood communities or place orders on the supermarkets' apps, Liu said.

The city has strengthened health testing for anti-epidemic workers including delivery people, providing convenient testing services.

Shanghai adopts a "2+2" testing mode for logistics workers, requiring them to take two antigen tests every other day, and one antigen test and one nucleic acid test the following day.