Shanghai, China recorded 3 deaths from Covid this Sunday (17), the first since the recent outbreak of contagion the city is in, according to Chinese authorities. Following the spike in cases in early April, the city began enacting an intense lockdown regime that has left 25 million people confined to their homes.
Shanghai, China’s largest city and major financial hub, is in its third week of mandatory lockdown for millions of people, sparking controversy among residents.
A document issued by the city’s health committee says the victims were aged between 89 and 91, had comorbidities and were unvaccinated, according to the BBC.
Without counting those victims, records indicate that China has had 4,638 deaths from Covid during the pandemic, just 7 of them in Shanghai, according to the Our World in Data website. The new records now put the city on 10 deaths from the disease.
Since March 10, local authorities in the city have conducted more than 200 million tests for the disease in a bid to control the largest Covid outbreak in China since the virus was discovered in 2019.
On Sunday, Shanghai reported 19,831 new asymptomatic and 2,417 symptomatic cases, according to official figures. The previous day, 21,582 were asymptomatic and 3,238 symptomatic.
Possible release from imprisonment
The city of Shanghai has set a goal of halting the spread of Covid19 outside of quarantine areas by Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter said, which will allow the city to ease its restrictions and return to normal life as the frustration has passed of the population increases with the siege.
Authorities must speed up testing of Covid19 and transmission of positive cases to quarantine centers, according to a speech by a local Communist Party member on Saturday, a copy of which Reuters saw.
Shanghai has become the epicenter of China’s largest outbreak since the virus was first identified in Wuhan in late 2019, and has recorded more than 320,000 Covid19 infections since early March, when the wave began.
Shanghai residents, frustrated by the siege, took to social media to speak out to local authorities about difficulties sourcing food, loss of income, separation between family members and poor conditions at quarantine centers. The tensions led to some protests and fights with the police.
Shanghai’s new target of “Covidzero in community broadcasts” by April 20 was announced to Communist Party cadres and organizations such as the city’s schools in recent days, according to the sources, who declined to be identified because the information was not were publicly available.