As Lockdown Lifts, Shanghai Swarmed With Termites
Shanghai’s grueling two-month lockdown has hugely disrupted social and economic life in the metropolis, but the Covid-19 surge has created another, perhaps less expected, problem — the city is battling a fresh wave of termites. Videos and photos circulating online show that swarms of the wood-munching pests have recently appeared in several of the city’s districts. As of Monday, the city’s hotlines had received about 1,400 calls for pest control, local media report. Although the insects are not an uncommon sight during the spring, a season in which they swarm to reproduce and create new colonies, this year it appears their numbers are greater than normal in Shanghai. Leng Pei’en, chief physician with the city’s center for disease control and prevention, told the state-backed Shanghai Observer that pest control work was disrupted by the lockdowns and other anti-Covid measures. The city usually monitors insects in March and starts pest control work in April, Leng told the Shanghai Observ