I've stayed away from this thread for a while, but having lived in China and knowing lots of people there I wanted to chime in.
China's covid strategy is baffling, it worked initially but they didnt use the two years they bought themselves to put any plan in place. Tolerance for the zero covid approach was already waning before the Shanghai outbreak and omicron is considerably more infectious and less deadly than the original strain that triggered a similar response in Wuhan.
Not only have these measures proved ineffective in Shanghai so far, they're arguably more severe than Wuhan and make way less sense. It truly is a dystopian nightmare and I've never seen so much backlash on chinese social media. A couple days ago netizans managed to hijack several hashtags on wiebo about U.S. human rights and corruption to complain about human rights issues and corruption in China. They were #1 and 2 trending on wiebo for hours before the sensors caught on. There is a lot of discontent in China right now and this has wider political ramifications Chinese policy. For example, when discontent grows within China, they try to stoke nationalism to distract from whatever the problem may be, which could explain recent intelligence reports that China is planning fresh incursions in India.
Likewise, this is going to further dent the global supply chain because Shanghai is a major global port city.