What's happening in Shanghai

Hi all, it’s Zheping in Hong Kong. The Covid lockdown in my hometown of Shanghai is finally showing signs of easing. But first...Today’s mus [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi all, it’s Zheping in Hong Kong. The Covid lockdown in my hometown of Shanghai is finally showing signs of easing. But first... Today’s must-reads: - Elon Musk [was sued]( by a Twitter shareholder over delays in reporting his stake - Blood pressure monitoring likely won’t come to the Apple Watch [until 2024]( - Shiba Inu is one of the [crytpo tokens]( now trading on Robinhood Searching for vegetables in Shanghai China is the only country in the world with a Zero Covid policy, requiring dramatic measures at any sign of an outbreak. Now, as a highly contagious omicron variant rips through the country, massive lockdowns have scuttled [supply chains]( and led to [food shortages]( for some residents. In Shanghai, a city of about 25 million, there are more than 20,000 new cases per day. The city entered a two-phase lockdown on March 28 that was supposed to wrap up days after massive rounds of testing. But cases stayed high. On Monday, the government unveiled plans to ease the lockdowns, slowly—opening up housing complexes with no infections reported within 14 days. I spent most of my life in Shanghai before moving to Hong Kong. Now, every day I check in with my parents and close relatives there who are still confined to their homes, [like the vast majority]( of people in the city. I worry about the possibility of infections—especially for my grandmas who are in their nineties and aren’t vaccinated—but I worry more about the collateral damage. The lockdown has extended much longer than most people were prepared for, and as it drags on, it’s become harder for them to [get access to essentials]( like food and medicine. Last week my cousin texted me before I woke up, asking me to sign up on the Meituan Maicai grocery app to help her scoop up whatever leafy greens were available at 8:30am sharp, when the platform typically replenishes its stock. Her one-year-old son needed to eat vegetables, she told me. The two of us refreshed the page again and again, but to no avail. In the red-hot internet industry of past years, online grocery startups as well as giants like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. built huge businesses delivering items like milk and toilet paper to China’s doorsteps. But Shanghai’s lockdown has restricted the flow of people and goods, and has plunged an industry turbo-charged by the pandemic into a logistical nightmare, leaving everyday people without groceries. More recently, my cousin has been scrambling on different grocery apps, and shortages remain. Like many, she had to instead turn to her neighborhood committee to order some veggies for her infant, but the delivery is slow. Grass-roots efforts to fill in the gaps are proliferating online, including WeChat groups for swapping goods, as well as cloud documents serving as yellow pages for underground dealers – some of whom appear to be scammers, unfortunately, judging from user comments I’ve seen. Anxiety and anger have bubbled up in the city as social media posts claim to detail the dark side of the lockdowns: A [pet corgi]( was beaten to death after its owner was tested positive; parents were forced to separate from their infected toddlers in a hospital; and an asthma sufferer died after an ambulance prioritized Covid patients instead. Those three cases went viral, and officials admitted subsequently there were areas for improvement in the handling of the illness. At the same time, other similar stories have disappeared from China’s highly censored social media. In China’s walled-off online universe, there’s often not much room for debate over issues like how to strike a balance between controlling the virus and living a normal life. This climate is the result of more than a decade of taming, shaping and filtering content online. Even the mildest constructive criticism often gets suffocated by trolls in the name of patriotism. In addition to the impromptu grocery swaps set up online, misinformation has also been circulating. Some of my WeChat contacts claim in group chats that hostile foreign forces are spreading the latest wave of disease across the motherland. It’s not as helpful as instructions about finding vegetables. —[Zheping Huang](mailto:zhuang245@bloomberg.net) The big story The current tide of anitrust scrutiny has mostly omitted Microsoft. But some of its customers and rivals are claiming that the software giant is [again using its sway over one market]( to thwart competition in another. What else you need to know Uber and Lyft [halted surge pricing]( near the site of a shooting on a subway in Brooklyn. Zilingo, one of Singapore’s highest-profile startups, has [suspended its chief executive officer]( over questions about the company’s accounting. U.S. cybersecurity firms are seeking new standards as [Russian hacking fears]( grow. Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like Fully Charged? | [Get unlimited access to Bloomberg.com](, where you'll find trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Fully Charged newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](