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Some huge developments over the official channels today, including the announcement we've all been waiting for. At a press conference conducted this afternoon, Wu Qing, the Vice Mayor of Shanghai, declared the city government's support for any and all businesses to resume operations on June 1. The announcement comes on the heels of the majority of school resuming in-class activities in early June.

"All enterprises should try their best to return to work as much and as soon as possible" — including offices, hospitality, retail, service, and everything else.

‘Trying their best to return to work', presumably, refers to people who are already outside of quarantine and lockdown, and can actually go back to work.

The ‘as much as possible,' though, leaves some questions still unanswered: Can offices be at full capacity? Can restaurants host in-house diners or just take-away? Are there limits to how many people can be in a store? Can i, for the love of all things holy, just sit down in a bar and drink four pitcher of sangria like a damn human being?

At any rate, easing this transition, the Vice Mayor also stated that the application / consideration process that businesses and commercial properties had to complete to reopen up has been scrapped. They can just open. That's good.

Although, yes, lots of specific questions remain unanswered, the narrative thrust of the press conference was indicative of the flavors of official reports to come, namely the shift in focus from epidemic prevention to economic recovery.

To those ends, the Shanghai government released a big broad plan of 50 items — nice round number — aimed at the revitalization and stimulation of affected areas — read: all areas — through tax and rent breaks, subsidies, and rebates. For more details on the plan, click here to have a look.

Other Key Developments

that will affect your life however you're living it: The requirement that you'll need a negative PCR from the last 48 hours on your phone to get in anywhere has been dropped from a negative result from the last 48 to the last 72 hours, as of June 1.

People returning to Shanghai from out of town cannot be barred entry into their residences.

More public transportation and private transportation in a few of the outer districts will be allowed back on the roads on June 1.

The most key development: Just today, inside Plaza 66 there was already a queue to shop at Hermes. Shanghai's gonna be just alright.