Shanghai authorities have begun dismantling fences around housing compounds and ripping police tape off public squares and buildings before the lifting of a two-month lockdown in China's largest city at midnight.
Yesterday evening, some people allowed out of their compounds for brief walks took advantage of suspended traffic to congregate for a beer and ice cream on deserted streets.
But there was a sense of wariness and anxiety among residents. "I feel a little nervous," said Joseph Mak, who works in education. "It's hard to believe it's actually happening." Most will be stuck indoors again until midnight as they have been for the past two months under a strictly enforced lockdown that has caused income losses and stress and despair to people struggling to access food or get emergency healthcare.
The prolonged isolation has fuelled public anger and rare protests inside the city of 25 million people and battered its manufacturing and export-heavy economy, disrupted supply chains in China and around the world, and slowed international trade.